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The H1N1, H3N2 and, more recently, H1N2 subtypes of influenza A virus are presently co-circulating in swine herds in several countries. The objectives of this study were to investigate the pathogenesis of Sw/Italy/1521/98 (H1N2) influenza virus, isolated from respiratory tissues of pigs from herds in Northern Italy, and to evaluate its potential cross-protection against the Sw/Fin/2899/82 (H1N1) strain. In the pathogenesis test, eight pigs were intranasally infected with H1N2 virus; at pre-determined intervals, these animals were killed and necropsied, along with eight uninfected animals. In the cross-protection test, sixteen pigs were infected by intranasal (i.n.) and intratracheal (i.t.) routes with either H1N2 or H1N1 virus. Twenty days later, all pigs were challenged (by the same route), with either the homologous H1N2 or heterologous H1N1 virus strains. Control group was inoculated with culture medium alone. On post-challenge days (PCD) 1 and 3, two pigs from each infected group, along with one control pig, were killed. Clinical, virological, serological and histopathological investigations were performed in both the pathogenicity and cross-protection tests. In the pathogenicity test, mild clinical signs were observed in two pigs during 3 and 4 days, respectively. Virus was isolated from two pigs over 6 days and from lung samples of pigs killed on post-infection days 2 and 4. Seroconversion was detected in the two infected animals killed 15 days after infection. In the cross-protection study, mild clinical respiratory signs were detected in all pigs infected with either the H1N2 or H1N1 virus. The virus was isolated from nasal swabs of almost all pigs till 6 days. After the challenge infection, the pigs remained clinically healthy and virus isolation from the nasal secretions or lung samples was sporadic. Antibody titres in H1N1 or H1N2 infected groups were similar, whereas the H1N2 sub-type induced less protection against re-infection by homologous and heterologous virus than H1N1 sub-type. The controls had no signs of the disease. In the H1N2 infected pigs, a reduced number of goblet cells in nasal and tracheal mucosa and small foci of lymphomononuclear cell infiltrates in the submucosa were detected. Furthermore, the goblet cell reduction was related to the time of infection. Diffuse mild interstitial pneumonia was also recorded in pigs infected with the H1N2 virus and challenged with either H1N1or H1N2 pigs. These studies showed the moderate virulence of the H1N2 virus and a partial cross-protection against heterologous infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Experientia is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Experientia is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Experientia is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Different degrees of similarity are found between the electrophoretic patterns of proteins of Ophryotrocha labronica populations collected in 3 different localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many virological tests have been implemented during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for diagnostic purposes, but they appear unsuitable for screening purposes. Furthermore, current screening strategies are not accurate enough to effectively curb the spread of the disease. Therefore, the present study was conducted within a controlled clinical environment to determine eventual detectable variations in the voice of COVID-19 patients, recovered and healthy subjects, and also to determine whether machine learning-based voice assessment (MLVA) can accurately discriminate between them, thus potentially serving as a more effective mass-screening tool. Three different subpopulations were consecutively recruited: positive COVID-19 patients, recovered COVID-19 patients and healthy individuals as controls. Positive patients were recruited within 10 days from nasal swab positivity. Recovery from COVID-19 was established clinically, virologically and radiologically. Healthy individuals reported no COVID-19 symptoms and yielded negative results at serological testing. All study participants provided three trials for multiple vocal tasks (sustained vowel phonation, speech, cough). All recordings were initially divided into three different binary classifications with a feature selection, ranking and cross-validated RBF-SVM pipeline. This brough a mean accuracy of 90.24%, a mean sensitivity of 91.15%, a mean specificity of 89.13% and a mean AUC of 0.94 across all tasks and all comparisons, and outlined the sustained vowel as the most effective vocal task for COVID discrimination. Moreover, a three-way classification was carried out on an external test set comprised of 30 subjects, 10 per class, with a mean accuracy of 80% and an accuracy of 100% for the detection of positive subjects. Within this assessment, recovered individuals proved to be the most difficult class to identify, and all the misclassified subjects were declared positive; this might be related to mid and short-term vocal traces of COVID-19, even after the clinical resolution of the infection. In conclusion, MLVA may accurately discriminate between positive COVID-19 patients, recovered COVID-19 patients and healthy individuals. Further studies should test MLVA among larger populations and asymptomatic positive COVID-19 patients to validate this novel screening technology and test its potential application as a potentially more effective surveillance strategy for COVID-19., (Copyright © 2021 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Vocal tract discomfort (VTD), dysphonia, and laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) symptoms are complaints frequently reported by amateur singers. There are two aims of this study. The first is to evaluate the prevalence of these symptoms using validated questionnaires. The second is to correlate singing-related variables with the questionnaire responses., Methods: A total of 392 amateur choir singers (ACS) and 514 control subjects completed an online survey divided into four parts: (1) clinical and demographic characteristics, (2) training in singing and singing experience, (3) history of gastroesophageal reflux disease and LPR symptoms, (4) validated questionnaires. Specifically, the reflux symptom index (RSI), the vocal tract discomfort scale (VTDS), and the voice symptom scale (VoiSS) were included to analyze the actual burden related to LPR symptoms, VTD, and dysphonia., Results: ACS demonstrated a healthier lifestyle and a lower prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease symptoms in comparison with control subjects. ACS scored significantly higher in VTDS and VoiSS than control subjects, while no differences in the RSI results were found. Significant correlations among the questionnaires' results were demonstrated. Occasional professional singing was the variable influencing VTDS and VoiSS results the most., Conclusion: ACS do not evidently manifest a higher impairment connected to LPR (RSI score), while they do report higher levels of voice (VoiSS score) and vocal tract (VTDS score) impairments, in comparison with control subjects. The relevant correlations among the PRO measures suggest that LPR symptoms, VTD, and dysphonia are related to each other. Given the relevant repercussion on the severity of VTD and dysphonia, providers should specifically ask about occasional professional singing when treating amateur singers., Competing Interests: Declarations of interest None, (Copyright © 2021 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Alongside the currently used nasal swab testing, the COVID-19 pandemic situation would gain noticeable advantages from low-cost tests that are available at any-time, anywhere, at a large-scale, and with real time answers. A novel approach for COVID-19 assessment is adopted here, discriminating negative subjects versus positive or recovered subjects. The scope is to identify potential discriminating features, highlight mid and short-term effects of COVID on the voice and compare two custom algorithms. A pool of 310 subjects took part in the study; recordings were collected in a low-noise, controlled setting employing three different vocal tasks. Binary classifications followed, using two different custom algorithms. The first was based on the coupling of boosting and bagging, with an AdaBoost classifier using Random Forest learners. A feature selection process was employed for the training, identifying a subset of features acting as clinically relevant biomarkers. The other approach was centered on two custom CNN architectures applied to mel-Spectrograms, with a custom knowledge-based data augmentation. Performances, evaluated on an independent test set, were comparable: Adaboost and CNN differentiated COVID-19 positive from negative with accuracies of 100% and 95% respectively, and recovered from negative individuals with accuracies of 86.1% and 75% respectively. This study highlights the possibility to identify COVID-19 positive subjects, foreseeing a tool for on-site screening, while also considering recovered subjects and the effects of COVID-19 on the voice. The two proposed novel architectures allow for the identification of biomarkers and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of traditional ML versus deep learning in speech analysis., Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Authors Giovanni Costantini, Giovanni Saggio, and Antonio Pisani are advisory members of VoiceWise S.r.l., spin-off company of University of Rome Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy) developing voice analysis solutions for diagnostic purposes; Valerio Cesarini cooperates with VoiceWise and is employed by CloudWise S.r.l., a company developing cloud data storage and software solutions., (© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To perform a cross-cultural adaptation into Italian and to analyse reliability and validity of the Transsexual Voice Questionnaire for male-to-female transsexuals (I-TVQ MtF )., Study Design: Cross-sectional nonrandomized survey study., Methods: For item-generation, a cross-cultural adaptation and translation process was performed following standard guidelines. Transgender women were consecutively recruited and asked to fill out the I-TVQ MtF and a form on social, demographic and transition-related variables. Firstly, data collected from participants were used to perform confirmatory factor analysis, and to evaluate internal consistency and test-retest reliability Subsequently, convergent validity was evaluated comparing I-TVQ MtF total scores with the two extra items addressing self-perception (SPVF) and aspiration (AVF) of voice femininity. To evaluate convergent validity, scores of the Italian version of the Voice Handicap Index were considered for comparisons. A correlation analysis was performed to verify potential association between I-TVQ MtF scores and social, demographic and transition-related variables., Results: Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that a two-factor model fits data better than the unidimensional one. Both internal consistency and test retest reliability of the I-TVQ MtF were satisfactory. Negative correlations were highlighted between I-TVQ MtF scores on one side and self-perception vocal functioning and aspiration vocal functioning on the other. Positive correlations between I-TVQ MtF and Italian version of the Voice Handicap Index scores were also found. Finally, negative correlations were demonstrated between I-TVQ MtF scores and time spent living in the female role., Conclusion: The I-TVQ MtF appears to be a reliable and valid instrument for the assessment of voice-related quality of life in transgender women., (Copyright © 2020 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are commonly prescribed for laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), but their efficacy remains debated. Alginates is an option for the treatment of LPR with few adverse effects. The study aimed to investigate the non-inferiority of an alginate suspension (Gastrotuss ® ) compared to PPIs (Omeprazole) in reducing LPR symptoms and signs., Methods: A non-inferiority randomized controlled trial was conducted. Fifty patients with laryngopharyngeal symptoms (Reflux Symptom Index -RSI- ≥ 13) and signs (Reflux Finding Score -RFS- ≥ 7) were randomized in two treatment groups: (A) Gastrotuss ® (20 ml, three daily doses) and, (B) Omeprazole (20 mg, once daily). The RSI and the RFS were assessed at baseline and after 2 months of treatment., Results: Groups had similar RSI and RFS scores at baseline. From pre- to 2-month posttreatment, the mean RSI significantly decreased (p = 0.001) in alginate and PPI group (p = 0.003). The difference between groups in the RSI change was not significant (95%CI:  - 4.2-6.7, p = 0.639). The mean RFS significantly decreased in alginate (p = 0.006) and PPI groups (p = 0.006). The difference between groups in the mean change RFS was not significant (95%CI:  - 0.8; 1.4, p = 0.608)., Conclusion: After 2 months of treatment, LPR symptoms and signs are significantly reduced irrespective of the treatment. Alginate was non-inferior to PPIs and may represent an alternative treatment to PPIs for the treatment of LPR., (© 2022. The Author(s).)