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A collection of more than 1800 carbonized papyri, discovered in the Roman ‘Villa dei Papiri’ at Herculaneum is the unique classical library survived from antiquity. These papyri were charred during 79 A.D. Vesuvius eruption, a circumstance which providentially preserved them until now. This magnificent collection contains an impressive amount of treatises by Greek philosophers and, especially, Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean thinker of 1st century BC. We read many portions of text hidden inside carbonized Herculaneum papyri using enhanced X-ray phase-contrast tomography non-destructive technique and a new set of numerical algorithms for ‘virtual-unrolling’. Our success lies in revealing the largest portion of Greek text ever detected so far inside unopened scrolls, with unprecedented spatial resolution and contrast, all without damaging these precious historical manuscripts. Parts of text have been decoded and the ‘voice’ of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus is brought back again after 2000 years from Herculaneum papyri.

We report a strategy to assemble and manipulate nanoparticles arrays. The approach is based on the use of topological defects, namely disclination lines, created in chiral liquid crystals. The control of nanoparticle-loaded topological defects by low power light is demonstrated. Large-scale rotation, translation and deformation of quantum dots light-emitting chains is achieved by homogeneous LED illumination. Full reconfigurability and time stability make this approach attractive for future developments and applications.

We report for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) from arrays of gold nanoparticles produced by 2-photons photo-reduction of the metallic precursor (HAuCl4) hosted in a Poly-Vinyl Alcohol (PVA) matrix, on glass substrates. Samples with the same pattern but featuring different nanoparticles size and density were obtained by varying the writing laser power and scanning speed. The Raman spectra were recorded from samples immersed in a solution of rhodamine-6G (R6G), as well as, after exposure of the samples in xylene. SERS enhancement factors of up to ∼104 were obtained for both analytes. The measurements show that the SERS enhancement is maximized on golden strips produced at higher writing laser power and lower scanning speed, where closer nanoparticles packing is obtained..

PurposeCompliance with anticoagulation treatment for atrial fibrillation is highly variable. Smartphone electrocardiograms that allow patients to have greater insight into their arrhythmia burden may improve anticoagulant compliance.MethodsPatients were enrolled if they had atrial fibrillation with a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 2 or more, were eligible for anticoagulation and had a smartphone. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a smartphone electrocardiogram (AliveCor Kardia) to record their electrocardiograms 5 times/week or to the control group. All patients received 6 months of anticoagulant (apixaban) dispensed as 1-month pre-loaded pill boxes.ResultsA total of 100 patients were enrolled from July 2017 to August 2019, but 5 patients in the monitor arm and 1 in the control arm withdrew prematurely. The monitor and control groups did not differ in age, gender, CHA2DS2-VASc score, or comorbidities. Median medication compliance was 99.7%, with nonsignificantly greater compliance in the monitor group (100%) than in the control group (99.7%) (p-value = 0.247). There was also no significant difference between missing any dose and use/nonuse of the smartphone monitor (48.9% vs. 55.1%; p-value = 0.692). Mean monitor compliance was 86.8% ± 14.0% with an average of 4.34 recorded electrocardiograms per week. Monitor group patients with perfect medication compliance had significantly higher monitor compliance than those patients who missed doses (median 95.3% vs 86.7%; p-value = 0.02).ConclusionsIn a study population with higher-than-expected medication compliance, the use of smartphone electrocardiogram did not demonstrate an improvement in medication compliance as compared to usual care. Greater monitor compliance was associated with greater medication compliance.Clinical trial registrationBOAT-OAR ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03515083.

Scientific Reports 6: Article number: 27227; published online: 06 June 2016; updated: 09 September 2016 The Acknowledgements section in this Article is incomplete. The authors wish to thank Luigi Nicolais (CNR), Glenn Most (SNS, Pisa), Daniel Koger (Lindsey Wilson College, Kentucky, US), G. Neville Greaves (University of Cambridge, UK) for valuable discussions and revisions of the present study, the ESRF Directorate for having granted the beamtime, the Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’ of Naples, for lending us the samples (in particular, the officers Sofia Maresca and Vincenzo Boni), Eugenio Amendola (CNR-IPCB), for valuable assistance in the preparation of the containers for the samples, Carlo Ionta for technical assistance in data-analysis, Luigi Verolino (University of Naples Federico II) and Gaetano Campi (CNR-IC), for preliminary discussions.

A collection of more than 1800 carbonized Greek and Latin papyri, discovered in the Roman Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum in the middle of 18th century, is the unique classical library survived from antiquity. These ancient-Herculaneum-papyri were charred during 79 A.D. Vesuvius eruption, a circumstance which providentially preserved them until now. This magnificent collection contains valuable work by Greek philosophers, such as Epicurus, Chrysippus and Philodemus, in particular an impressive amount of extensive treatises by Philodemus of Gadara, an Epicurean philosopher of the 1st century BC. The aim of the present study is to read extended and hitherto unknown portions of text hidden inside carbonized-Herculaneum-papyri using enhanced X-ray-phase-contrast-tomography (XPCT) non-destructive technique and a new set of numerical algorithms for virtual-unrolling. This paper documents our success in revealing the largest portion of Greek text ever detected so far inside unopened scrolls, with unprecedented spatial resolution and contrast, all without damaging these precious historical manuscripts. Parts of texts have been decoded and the 'voice' of Epicurean philosopher Philodemus is brought back again after 2000 years from rolled-up carbonized Herculaneum-papyri.

PurposeThis registry compared the safety and efficacy of vascular closure device Perclose (PC) with figure-of-eight stitch (Fo8) and manual compression (MC) following catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation/flutter.MethodsVAscular Closure for Cardiac Ablation Registry (VACCAR) is a prospective, observational registry that assessed the time to hemostasis (TTH), time to ambulation (TTA), length of stay (LOS), complications, patient-reported outcomes, and pain medication use.ResultsA total of 434 patients (mean age 64.0±11.0 years; 38% female; 94.9% white) were enrolled between October 2017 and May 2019: 156 in MC, 203 in Fo8, and 75 in the PC group. Median TTH was significantly reduced in the PC and Fo8 group at 7 and 9 min respectively vs. the MC group at 20 min (p<0.001). Median TTA was significantly reduced in both the PC and Fo8 group at 2.2 h vs. the MC group at 6.5 h (p<0.001 for both). Median LOS for the PC group was significantly reduced at 27.5 h compared to the MC and Fo8 group at 29 h (p<0.01). A higher proportion of same-day discharges were noted in the PC and Fo8 groups at 14 (18.7%) and 25 (12.3%), respectively, compared to 5 (3.2%) in the MC group (p<0.01 for all). There was no significant difference in complications between the three groups.ConclusionsBoth PC and Fo8 are safe with improved TTH, TTA, LOS, and a higher number of same-day discharges compared to MC.

A new tecnique for the production of special shaped SPM tips is reported. Noble metal coated tips are produced with flat and circular tip front. The unusual truncated-cone tip shape is obtained by modifying commercial tips. The diameter of the tip front flat area can be varied continuously in the range 0.05 - 1 micrometer.

Low survival rates of metastatic cancers emphasize the need for a drug that can prevent and/or treat metastatic cancer. αv integrins are involved in essential processes for tumor growth and metastasis and targeting of αv integrins has been shown to decrease angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis. In this study, the role of αv integrin and its potential as a drug target in bladder cancer was investigated. Treatment with an αv integrin antagonist as well as knockdown of αv integrin in the bladder carcinoma cell lines, resulted in reduced malignancy in vitro, as illustrated by decreased proliferative, migratory and clonogenic capacity. The CDH1/CDH2 ratio increased, indicating a shift towards a more epithelial phenotype. This shift appeared to be associated with downregulation of EMT-inducing transcription factors including SNAI2. The expression levels of the self-renewal genes NANOG and BMI1 decreased as well as the number of cells with high Aldehyde Dehydrogenase activity. In addition, self-renewal ability decreased as measured with the urosphere assay. In line with these observations, knockdown or treatment of αv integrins resulted in decreased metastatic growth in preclinical in vivo models as assessed by bioluminescence imaging. In conclusion, we show that αv integrins are involved in migration, EMT and maintenance of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase activity in bladder cancer cells. Targeting of αv integrins might be a promising approach for treatment and/or prevention of metastatic bladder cancer.