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Honeybees are important pollinators, having an essential role in the ecology of natural and agricultural environments. Honeybee colony losses episodes reported worldwide and have been associated with different pests and pathogens, pesticide exposure, and nutritional stress. This nutritional stress is related to the increase in monoculture areas which leads to a reduction of pollen availability and diversity. In this study, we examined whether nutritional stress affects honeybee gut microbiota, bee immunity, and infection by Nosema ceranae, under laboratory conditions. Consumption of Eucalyptus grandis pollen was used as a nutritionally poor-quality diet to study nutritional stress, in contraposition to the consumption of polyfloral pollen. Honeybees feed with Eucalyptus grandis pollen showed a lower abundance of Lactobacillus mellifer and Lactobacillus apis (Firm-4 and Firm-5, respectively) and Bifidobacterium spp. and a higher abundance of Bartonella apis, than honeybees fed with polyfloral pollen. Besides the impact of nutritional stress on honeybee microbiota, it also decreased the expression levels of vitellogenin and genes associated to immunity (glucose oxidase, hymenoptaecin and lysozyme). Finally, Eucalyptus grandis pollen favored the multiplication of Nosema ceranae. These results show that nutritional stress impacts the honeybee gut microbiota, having consequences on honeybee immunity and pathogen development. Those results may be useful to understand the influence of modern agriculture on honeybee health.

Honeybees Apis mellifera are important pollinators of wild plants and commercial crops. For more than a decade, high percentages of honeybee colony losses have been reported worldwide. Nutritional stress due to habitat depletion, infection by different pests and pathogens and pesticide exposure has been proposed as the major causes. In this study we analyzed how nutritional stress affects colony strength and health. Two groups of colonies were set in a Eucalyptus grandis plantation at the beginning of the flowering period (autumn), replicating a natural scenario with a nutritionally poor food source. While both groups of colonies had access to the pollen available in this plantation, one was supplemented with a polyfloral pollen patty during the entire flowering period. In the short-term, colonies under nutritional stress (which consumed mainly E. grandis pollen) showed higher infection level with Nosema spp. and lower brood and adult bee population, compared to supplemented colonies. On the other hand, these supplemented colonies showed higher infection level with RNA viruses although infection levels were low compared to countries were viral infections have negative impacts. Nutritional stress also had long-term colony effects, because bee population did not recover in spring, as in supplemented colonies did. In conclusion, nutritional stress and Nosema spp. infection had a severe impact on colony strength with consequences in both short and long-term.

To counteract muscle mass, muscle strength and power loss during aging, and to study age-related change of neuromuscular manifestation of fatigue in relation to nutritional supplementation. randomized controlled double-blind study. Twice-daily consumption for 12 weeks of an Essential Amino Acids (EAA)-based multi-ingredient nutritional supplement containing EAA, creatine, vitamin D and Muscle Restore Complex®. 38 healthy elderly subjects (8 male, 30 female; age: 68.91±4.60 years; body weight: 69.40±15.58 kg; height: 1.60±0.09 m) were randomized and allocated in supplement (SUPP) or placebo (PLA) group. Vitamin D blood level; Appendicular Lean Mass (ALM); Visceral Adipose Tissue (VAT); Maximal Voluntary Contraction (MVC) and Peak Power (PP); myoelectric descriptors of fatigue: Fractal Dimension and Conduction Velocity initial values (FD iv, CV iv), their rates of change (FD slopes, CV slopes) and the Time to perform the Task (TtT). Significant changes were found in SUPP compared to baseline: Vitamin D (+8.73 ng/ml; p<0.001); ALM (+0.34 kg; p<0.001); VAT (-76.25 g; p<0.001); MVC (+0.52 kg; p<0.001); PP (+4.82 W; p<0.001). Between group analysis (SUPP Vs. PLA) showed improvements: vitamin D blood levels (+11,72 ng/ml; p<0.001); Legs FFM (+443.7 g; p<0.05); ALM (+0.53 kg; p<0.05); MVC (+1.38 kg; p<0.05); PP (+9.87 W; p<0.05). No statistical changes were found for FD iv, CV iv, FD and CV slopes and TtT, either compared to baseline or between groups. Significant correlations between mean differences in SUPP group were also found. The study demonstrates that in healthy elderly subjects an EAA-based multi-ingredient nutritional supplementation of 12 weeks is not effective to change myoelectric manifestation of fatigue and TtT failure but can positively affect muscle mass, muscle strength, muscle power and VAT, counterbalancing more than one year of age-related loss of muscle mass and strength.

The LABEC laboratory, the INFN ion beam laboratory of nuclear techniques for environment and cultural heritage, located in the Scientific and Technological Campus of the University of Florence in Sesto Fiorentino, started its operational activities in 2004, after INFN decided in 2001 to provide our applied nuclear physics group with a large laboratory dedicated to applications of accelerator-related analytical techniques, based on a new 3 MV Tandetron accelerator. The new accelerator greatly improved the performance of existing Ion Beam Analysis (IBA) applications (for which we were using since the 1980s an old single-ended Van de Graaff accelerator) and in addition allowed to start a novel activity of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), in particular for 14 C dating. Switching between IBA and AMS operation became very easy and fast, which allowed us high flexibility in programming the activities, mainly focused on studies of cultural heritage and atmospheric aerosol composition, but including also applications to biology, geology, material science and forensics, ion implantation, tests of radiation damage to components, detector performance tests and low-energy nuclear physics. This paper describes the facilities presently available in the LABEC laboratory, their technical features and some success stories of recent applications.

The identification of an artist's palette through the application of non-invasive techniques is a challenging goal due to the huge variety of artistic materials that constitutes a painting. An effective approach is to combine several techniques providing complementary information in order to minimise the risk of misinterpreting the data. In this paper, we propose a multi-analytical method comprising three non-invasive mapping techniques, namely Reflectance Imaging Spectroscopy (RIS), Macro-X-Ray Fluorescence (MA-XRF) and Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLI), for the study of a fourteenth-century painting by Pietro Lorenzetti from the Uffizi Gallery collection. For the low-cost and time-saving interpretation and integration of the data provided by the different techniques, a purposely developed software for multivariate statistical analysis was used. FLI data were acquired with a prototype applied for the first time on a work of art, and the data were processed with a method based on phasor analysis. The information obtained was discussed within a multidisciplinary team of experts on painting materials and data processing belonging to both the scientific and the conservation community.

The application of cleaning treatments for the restoration of nineteenth–twentieth-century photographs represents an innovative and still little explored aspect. In this work, in order to remove the degradation products, two cleaning methods were used for two different photographic techniques: poly(vinyl alcohol)-based hydrogels were applied to clean an albumen-based print, while calcium chlorine was used to remove the silver mirroring effect on a gelatin silver print. The constituent materials and conservation state of the analyzed photographs were characterized using a multi-analytical approach: imaging analyses (UV–VIS-NIR), attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) spectroscopy, macro-X-ray fluorescence scanning (MA-XRF) spectroscopy, pH analyses and particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) were applied before and after the cleaning treatments. The two treatments have permitted of the recovery the degraded parts of the two photos, especially in the first study case. For the silver mirroring effect, further treatments will be required to obtain a complete removal of the effect. Graphical abstract

In this study, the authors propose the formalisation of the Simultaneous Slot Allocation Problem (SSAP), that extends, in two directions, the current way of allocating airport slots in Europe. The SSAP requires, first, to perform the slot allocation at all airports simultaneously and, second, to respect airspace sector capacities. The authors solve the SSAP with two algorithms based on metaheuristics, namely Iterated Local Search and Variable Neighborhood Search, and with an algorithm based on an integer linear programming model. They compare these algorithms on randomly generated instances and show that for small instances metaheuristics are competitive with the integer linear programming model. Nevertheless, the integer linear programming model is unable to solve medium or large instances because of memory and computation time requirements. Metaheuristics, instead, can deal with large instances, allocating slots to more than 99.8% of flights. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Objective: To evaluate modifications occurring in cognitive functions and behavioural aspects in a group of 72 consecutive patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) 15 months after bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Methods: 72 consecutive PD patients bilaterally implanted for DBS of the STN were evaluated before and after surgery with a mean follow-up of 15 months. A neuropsychological assessment was performed to evaluate reasoning (Raven Colour Matrices), memory (Bisyllabic Word Repetition Test, Corsi’s Block-Tapping Test, Paired-Associate Learning) and frontal executive functions (Trail Making Test Part B, Nelson Modified Card Sorting Test, phonemic and category verbal fluency tasks). Mood and suicidal ideation were evaluated using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Anxiety was measured by means of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and personality traits were evaluated with the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-III-R Axis II Disorders (SCID-II). Assessment of thought disorders and apathy was based on subitems of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale. Results: The comparisons between pre- and postoperative neuropsychological test scores showed a significant worsening only in phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks, while fewer errors were found in the Nelson Modified Card Sorting Test. Globally, behavioural assessment evidenced a small improvement in mood, as assessed by the BDI, in obsessive-compulsive and paranoid personality traits (SCID-II). Thought disorders worsened while suicidal ideation, anxiety and apathy showed no postoperative modifications. The analysis of individual outcomes (±1 SD criterion) evidenced a relevant postoperative cognitive decline in 3 patients out of 65 (4.5%). Moreover, following implantation, 1 patients exhibited psychosis (1.5%), 2 patients experienced a clinically relevant worsening of depressive symptoms (3%), 7 patients showed an increase in anxiety (12%) and 3 patients a worsening in depression and anxiety symptoms (3%). On the contrary, 12 patients (20%) showed a relevant improvement in mood and 14 patients (23%) a relevant reduction of anxiety symptoms after the surgery. Conclusions: The present study confirms that STN DBS is cognitively safe since the only relevant change observed was a mild decrease in verbal fluency tasks. Globally, a small postoperative improvement was found in the BDI, and in two SCID-II subscales concerning obsessive-compulsive and paranoid personality traits, even though postoperative behavioural disturbances can occur in individual patients.

HLA-G molecule plays an important role on immune response regulation and has been implicated on the inhibition of T and natural killer cell cytolytic function and inhibition of allogeneic T-cell proliferation. Due to its immune-modulator properties, the HLA-G gene expression has been associated with the outcome of allograft and of autoimmune, infectious, and malignant disorders. Several lines of evidence indicate that HLA-G polymorphisms at the 5′-upstream regulatory region (5′ URR) and 3′-untranslated region (3′ UTR) may influence the HLA-G expression levels. Because Brazilians represent one of the most heterogeneous populations in the world with the widest HLA-G coding region variability already detected among the studied populations, a high level of variability and haplotype diversity would be expected in Brazilians. On this basis, the 5′ URR, coding, and 3′ UTR variability were evaluated in a Brazilian series consisting of 100 healthy bone marrow donors, as well as the linkage disequilibrium pattern along the gene and the extended haplotypes encompassing several gene segment variations. The HLA-G locus seems to present six different HLA-G lineages showing functional variations mainly in nucleotides of the regulatory regions. Differences were observed at the 5′ URR in positions that either coincide with or are close to transcription factor–binding sites and at the 3′ UTR mainly in positions that have already been reported to influence HLA-G mRNA availability. We report several lines of evidence for balancing selection acting on the regulatory regions, which may indicate that these HLA-G lineages may be related to the differential HLA-G expression profiles.

Relapse after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is the leading cause of death in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) entering HCT with poor-risk features 1 – 3 . When HCT does produce prolonged relapse-free survival, it commonly reflects graft-versus-leukemia effects mediated by donor T cells reactive with antigens on leukemic cells 4 . As graft T cells have not been selected for leukemia specificity and frequently recognize proteins expressed by many normal host tissues, graft-versus-leukemia effects are often accompanied by morbidity and mortality from graft-versus-host disease 5 . Thus, AML relapse risk might be more effectively reduced with T cells expressing receptors (TCRs) that target selected AML antigens 6 . We therefore isolated a high-affinity Wilms’ Tumor Antigen 1-specific TCR (TCR C4 ) from HLA-A2 + normal donor repertoires, inserted TCR C4 into Epstein–Bar virus-specific donor CD8 + T cells (T TCR-C4 ) to minimize graft-versus-host disease risk and enhance transferred T cell survival 7 , 8 , and infused these cells prophylactically post-HCT into 12 patients ( NCT01640301 ). Relapse-free survival was 100% at a median of 44 months following infusion, while a concurrent comparative group of 88 patients with similar risk AML had 54% relapse-free survival ( P  = 0.002). T TCR-C4 maintained TCR C4 expression, persisted long-term and were polyfunctional. This strategy appears promising for preventing AML recurrence in individuals at increased risk of post-HCT relapse. Donor-derived, EBV-specific CD8 + T cells engineered to express a high-affinity WT1-specific TCR established persistent T cell responses that safely prevented post-HCT relapse in patients with high-risk AML.