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"Fusco, A"
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Play, physical activity and public health : the reframing of children's leisure lives
\"Are children playing less than they used to? Are rising obesity rates linked to a decline in children's time to play freely? These and other related questions have filled the pages of newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals for the past decade. Play, Physical Activity and Public Health presents a discussion of the way modern notions of play are rendering children's leisure activities less free and less engaged in simply for fun. Based on original qualitative research, and analysis of contemporary media from Canada and elsewhere, this book argues that the growing health concerns around childhood play entail a paradox: by advocating, promoting, discussing, and re-directing children's play, a new form of children's leisure is emerging - one that is purpose-driven, instrumentalised for health, and ultimately, less free. We explore how play has become goal-oriented, a means to health ends, and how the management of pleasure in play as well as diverse risk discourses around play continues to limit and constrain possibilities for children and families to play and engage in leisure freely. Incorporating past critiques of this trend in play, we argue for research and practice to create new possibilities and ways of thinking about children's play, leisure, fun and childhood, that are less constrained and managed, and importantly less geared towards health goals. This is a valuable resource for students and also an important read for school teachers, public health practitioners, psychologists, physical education teachers, academics and parents interested in how children's leisure lives are being shaped by the growing and diverse discussions around play\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Urbanization reduces gene flow but not genetic diversity of stream salamander populations in the New York City metropolitan area
Natural landscape heterogeneity and barriers resulting from urbanization can reduce genetic connectivity between populations. The evolutionary, demographic, and ecological effects of reduced connectivity may lead to population isolation and ultimately extinction. Alteration to the terrestrial and aquatic environment caused by urban influence can affect gene flow, specifically for stream salamanders who depend on both landscapes for survival and reproduction. To examine how urbanization affects a relatively common stream salamander species, we compared genetic connectivity of Eurycea bislineata (northern two‐lined salamander) populations within and between streams in an urban, suburban, and rural habitat around the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area. We report reduced genetic connectivity between streams within the urban landscape found to correspond with potential barriers to gene flow, that is, areas with more dense urbanization (roadways, industrial buildings, and residential housing). The suburban populations also exhibited areas of reduced connectivity correlated with areas of greater human land use and greater connectivity within a preserve protected from development. Connectivity was relatively high among neighboring rural streams, but a major roadway corresponded with genetic breaks even though the habitat contained more connected green space overall. Despite greater human disturbance across the landscape, urban and suburban salamander populations maintained comparable levels of genetic diversity to their rural counterparts. Yet small effective population size in the urban habitats yielded a high probability of loss of heterozygosity due to genetic drift in the future. In conclusion, urbanization impacted connectivity among stream salamander populations where its continual influence may eventually hinder population persistence for this native species in urban habitats.
Journal Article
Downregulation of HMGA-targeting microRNAs has a critical role in human pituitary tumorigenesis
Previous studies have demonstrated that high mobility group A proteins have a critical role on the onset of human pituitary adenomas. Indeed, both high mobility group A (
HMGA)
genes are overexpressed in pituitary adenomas, and consistently transgenic mice overexpressing either the
Hmga1
or the
Hmga2
gene develop mixed growth hormone/prolactin (GH-PRL)-secreting pituitary adenomas. Trisomy of chromosome 12, where
HMGA2
is located, and/or amplification of the
HMGA2
gene locus account for the
HMGA2
overexpression in most human prolactinomas. Conversely,
HMGA1
overexpression is not associated to any rearrangement or amplification of the
HMGA1
locus. We have first identified micro RNAs (miRNAs) able to target both
HMGA1
and
HMGA2
messenger RNAs. Then, all of these miRNAs have been found downregulated in pituitary adenomas of different histotypes, compared with normal pituitary. Interestingly, their downregulation was also observed in nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas where
HMGA2
overexpression is not associated to any alteration of the
HMGA2
locus. Functional studies show that all these
HMGA
-targeting miRNAs inhibit the proliferation of the rat pituitary adenoma cell line GH3. Therefore, these results indicate that the downregulation of the miRNAs able to target the
HMGA
genes could contribute to increase HMGA protein levels in human pituitary adenomas, and then to pituitary tumorigenesis.
Journal Article
Specific microRNAs are downregulated in human thyroid anaplastic carcinomas
Thyroid carcinomas comprise a broad spectrum of tumors with different clinical behaviors. On the one side, there are occult papillary carcinomas (PTC), slow growing and clinically silent, and on the other side, rapidly growing anaplastic carcinomas (ATC), which are among the most lethal human neoplasms. We have analysed the microRNA (miR) profile of ATC in comparison to the normal thyroid using a microarray (miRNACHIP microarray). By this approach, we found an aberrant miR expression profile that clearly differentiates ATC from normal thyroid tissues and from PTC analysed in previous studies. In particular, a significant decrease in miR-30d, miR-125b, miR-26a and miR-30a-5p was detected in ATC in comparison to normal thyroid tissue. These results were further confirmed by northern blots, quantitative reverse transcription–PCR analyses and
in situ
hybridization. The overexpression of these four miRs in two human ATC-derived cell lines suggests a critical role of miR-125b and miR-26a downregulation in thyroid carcinogenesis, since a cell growth inhibition was achieved. Conversely, no effect on cell growth was observed after the overexpression of miR-30d and miR-30a-5p in the same cells. In conclusion, these data indicate a miR signature associated with ATC and suggest the miR deregulation as an important event in thyroid cell transformation.
Journal Article
Defining in Detail and Evaluating Reliability of DSM-5 Criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Among Children
This paper describes a process to define a comprehensive list of exemplars for seven core Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and report on interrater reliability in applying these exemplars to determine ASD case classification. Clinicians completed an iterative process to map specific exemplars from the CDC Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network criteria for ASD surveillance, DSM-5 text, and diagnostic assessments to each of the core DSM-5 ASD criteria. Clinicians applied the diagnostic exemplars to child behavioral descriptions in existing evaluation records to establish initial reliability standards and then for blinded clinician review in one site (phase 1) and for two ADDM Network surveillance years (phase 2). Interrater reliability for each of the DSM-5 diagnostic categories and overall ASD classification was high (defined as very good .60–.79 to excellent ≥ .80 Kappa values) across sex, race/ethnicity, and cognitive levels for both phases. Classification of DSM-5 ASD by mapping specific exemplars from evaluation records by a diverse group of clinician raters is feasible and reliable. This framework provides confidence in the consistency of prevalence classifications of ASD and may be further applied to improve consistency of ASD diagnoses in clinical settings.
Journal Article
Upregulation of miR-21 by Ras in vivo and its role in tumor growth
miR-21 is a microRNA (miRNA) frequently overexpressed in human cancers. Here we show that miR-21 is upregulated both
in vitro
and
in vivo
by oncogenic Ras, thus linking this miRNA to one of the most frequently activated oncogenes in human cancers. Ras regulation of miR-21 occurs with a delayed kinetic and requires at least two Ras downstream pathways. A screen of human thyroid cancers and non-small-cell lung cancers for the expression of miR-21 reveals that it is overexpressed mainly in anaplastic thyroid carcinomas, the most aggressive form of thyroid cancer, whereas in lung its overexpression appears to be inversely correlated with tumor progression. We also show that a LNA directed against miR-21 slows down tumor growth in mice. Consistently, a search for mRNAs downregulated by miR-21 shows an enrichment for mRNAs encoding cell cycle checkpoints regulators, suggesting an important role for miR-21 in oncogenic Ras-induced cell proliferation.
Journal Article
Analysing the Probability of Detection of Shallow Spherical Defects by Means of Pulsed Thermography
The capability of Active Thermography (AT) techniques in detecting shallow defects has been proved by many works in the last years, both on metals and composites. However, there are few works in which these techniques have been used adopting simulated defects more representative of the real ones. The aim of this work is to investigate the capability of Pulsed Thermography of detecting shallow spherical defects in metal specimens produced with laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) process and characterized by a thermal behaviour very far from the flat bottom hole and so near to the real one. In particular, the quantitative characterization of defects has been carried out to obtain the Probability of Detection (PoD) curves. In fact, it is very common in non-destructive controls to define the limits of defect detectability by referring to PoD curves based on the analysis of flat bottom holes with a more generous estimation and therefore not true to real defect conditions. For this purpose, a series of specimens, made by means of Laser-Powder Bed Fusion technology (L-PBF) in AISI 316L, were inspected using Pulsed Thermography (PT), adopting two flash lamps and a cooled infrared sensor. To improve the quality of the raw thermal data, different post-processing algorithms were adopted. The results provide indications about the advantages and limitations of Active Thermography (AT) for the non-destructive offline controls of the structural integrity of metallic components.
Journal Article
Effect of different music genres on gait patterns in Parkinson’s disease
The timing and size of repetitive, internally generated, automatic sequences of movements are particularly affected in Parkinson’s disease. The most evident consequence of this deficit is the alteration of gait patterns, with a loss of rhythmicity, shorter steps, slower walking, and trunk instability. Several studies have highlighted a potential benefit of listening to music on the normalization of walking patterns. However, most of these studies investigated the effect of a single specific music. We hypothesized that different musical genres may induce different modifications of spatiotemporal parameters and trunk oscillations during walking. In this study, we enrolled healthy young subjects, healthy elderly, and patients with Parkinson’s disease. They were asked to walk listening, by a wireless headset, one of six different music tracks (related to four different musical genres) while wearing an inertial measurement unit at pelvis level used to assess their walking patterns. The main effect of music tracks resulted statistically significant in all the gait parameters (p < 0.05), but for symmetry of lower trunk movements. This effect was independent by group. The only significant interaction between music and group, in fact, was found for pelvis obliquity range of motion (p = 0.019). Post hoc analyses showed as classical music reduced speed and trunk tilting (p < 0.01), whereas the range of pelvic obliquity movements in frontal plane were increased by rock, motivational, and heavy metal songs (p < 0.015). In conclusion, the gait patterns were altered by listening music depending by the musical genre, and these adaptations occurred similarly among the three groups, including patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Journal Article
Management of the data processing & Run-by-Run simulations in KM3NeT
The KM3NeT collaboration is constructing two underwater neutrino detectors in the Mediterranean Sea: ARCA, optimized for the observation of astrophysical neutrinos, and ORCA, designed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy by detecting atmospheric neutrinos. As the detector configurations are growing and, thus, the amount of recorded data is increasing, efficient data quality and data processing management are essential. Data reconstruction and Monte Carlo simulations are performed in conjunction for each data-taking period (run). A Run-by-Run simulation approach is used to reproduce the seawater environmental conditions and possible variations, as well as the acquisition settings for each run, improving processing performance and analysis reliability. To meet computing requirements for portability, reproducibility, and scalability, KM3NeT has adopted Snakemake, a modern workflow management system that streamlines and automates complex data processing tasks while ensuring flexibility and efficiency across different computational environments. This workflow was successfully employed in recent KM3NeT analyses, including the first observation of an ultra-high-energy cosmic neutrino, published in Nature on February 12, 2025.
Journal Article
Cryptococcosis: epidemiology, fungal resistance, and new alternatives for treatment
Cryptococcosis is an important systemic mycosis and the third most prevalent disease in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive individuals. The incidence of cryptococcosis is high among the 25 million people with HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with recent estimates indicating that there are one million cases of cryptococcal meningitis globally per year in AIDS patients. In
Cryptococcus neoformans
, resistance to azoles may be associated with alterations in the target enzyme encoded by the gene ERG11, lanosterol 14α-demethylase. These alterations are obtained through mutations, or by overexpressing the gene encoding. In addition,
C. gattii
and
C. neoformans
present a heteroresistance phenotype, which may be related to increased virulence. Other species beyond
C. neoformans
and
C. gattii
, such as
C. laurentii
, have been diagnosed mainly in patients with immunosuppression. Infections of
C. albidus
have been isolated in cats and marine mammals. Recent evidence suggests that the majority of infections produced by this pathogen are associated with biofilm growth, which is also related with increased resistance to antifungal agents. Therefore, there is a great need to search for alternative antifungal agents for these fungi. The search for new molecules is currently occurring from nanoparticle drugs of plant peptide origin. This article presents a brief review of the literature regarding the epidemiology of cryptococcosis, as well as fungal resistance and new alternatives for treatment.
Journal Article