University of Bari Aldo Moro
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Branching fraction measurement of the decay B+ →ψ (2S)φ (1020)K+
No full textThe branching fraction of the decay B+→ψ(2S)φ(1020)K+, relative to the topologically similar decay B+→J/ψφ(1020)K+, is measured using proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb experiment at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8, and 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb-1. The ratio is found to be 0.061±0.004±0.009, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. Using the world-average branching fraction for B+→J/ψφ(1020)K+, the branching fraction for the decay B+→ψ(2S)φ(1020)K+ is found to be (3.0±0.2±0.5±0.2)×10-6, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic, and the third is due to the branching fraction of the normalization channel
Construction of bubbling solutions of the Brezis–Nirenberg problem in general bounded domains (I): The dimensions 4 and 5
No full textIn this paper, we consider the Brezis–Nirenberg problem (Formula presented.) where (Formula presented.), (Formula presented.) is a bounded domain with smooth boundary (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.). We prove that every eigenvalue of the Laplacian operator (Formula presented.) with the Dirichlet boundary is a concentration value of the Brezis–Nirenberg problem in dimensions (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) by constructing bubbling solutions with precisely asymptotic profiles via the Lyapunov–Schmidt reduction arguments. Our results suggest that the bubbling phenomenon of the Brezis–Nirenberg problem in dimensions (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) as the parameter (Formula presented.) is close to the eigenvalues are governed by crucial functions related to the eigenfunctions, which has not been observed yet in the literature to our best knowledge. Moreover, as the parameter (Formula presented.) is close to the eigenvalues, there are arbitrary number of multibump bubbling solutions in dimension (Formula presented.) while, there are only finitely many number of multibump bubbling solutions in dimension (Formula presented.), which are also new findings to our best knowledge
LA SOLIDARIETÀ EUROPEA. Avanzamenti, arretramenti e prospettive a 15 anni dalla riforma di Lisbona
No full textIl volume raccoglie gli scritti di qualificate autrici e qualificati autori, ap-
partenenti in gran parte al settore scientifico disciplinare del diritto dell’U-
nione europea, sviluppati all’esito di un convegno svoltosi a Bari il 20 e 21
marzo 202
Una strega eroicomica: la Martinazza di Lorenzo Lippi
No full textSi analizza la figura dell'antieroina Martinazza, strega pasticciona nel Malmantile racquistato di Lorenzo Lipp
Neonatal Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis: Current Insights and Knowledge Gaps
No full textAcute and chronic Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) has been well characterized in children; otherwise, neonatal FPIES (N-FPIES) remains poorly understood. In terms of pathophysiology, neonatal FPIES appears to have a more prevalent TH2 response and is characterized by specific clinical features that make the diagnosis challenging. Genetic and environmental risk factors may predispose to the development of FPIES. Recent evidence indicates that a characteristic microbiota signature may lead to barrier dysfunction, reduced regulatory T cells, and abnormal intestinal production of serotonin, responsible for the symptoms of FPIES. Regarding clinical presentation, newborns with FPIES may not fully meet the current guideline’s diagnostic criteria at disease onset, being more similar to clinical entity specific of neonatal age than to acute FPIES in infants and children. Hence, differentiation from other neonatal medical and surgical conditions—particularly necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)—remains a critical challenge for clinicians. This present review highlights our current understanding of N-FPIES, in term of pathophysiology, clinical presentation diagnosis, and treatment strategies. Refining diagnostic criteria for N-FPIES represents a clinical priority to help physicians in diagnosing and managing this challenging condition. Last, but not least, larger clinical trials are needed to optimize treatment practices in term and preterm newborns with FPIES
Implementation of infection prevention and control components in Italian hospitals based on a nationwide survey on behalf of INSIEME project
Get PDFWe aim to assess the state-of-the-art of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices and their results
in Italian healthcare facilities 6 years after the kick-off of the new National Plan for the Control of Antibiotic Resistance (PNCAR). This was a multicenter, cross-sectional, observational study conducted between January 1st, and December 31st, 2023, among Italian hospitals. Survey questions were readapted from the WHO IPC assessment framework (IPCAF), PNCAR and INSIEME group proposals, resulting in 155 questions grouped into six sections: IPC program, surveillance, control activities for healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) strategies, IPC training and education, and monitoring indicators. Thirty-eight acute care Hospitals completed the survey (response rate: 30%): 26.3% of hospitals did not define an annual program and 34.2% an AMS task force. Periodic microbiology reports were available for 57.9%, hospital alcohol-based hand rubs consumption per 1000 bed-days in 42.1% and defined daily dose
of antimicrobials per 100 bed-days in 55.3% hospitals with a significant difference between Northern and Southern regions (90.9% vs 22.2%; P = 0.006). Active monitoring of hand hygiene and contact isolation compliance was implemented in only half of the hospitals. Structured HAI surveillance systems were implemented in fewer than 20% of hospitals. Components on IPC implementation activity, such as no-touch sanitizing systems, checklist for environmental cleaning, informatic flags, bundles for pathogens revealed the lowest score. The appropriateness of antibiotic therapy prescribing was assessed in 73.7% of facilities. Only 42.1% of hospitals had budget goals. This survey provides a baseline assessment and identifies key barriers to the implementation of IPC programs across Italian acute care hospitals. The findings highlight priority areas for intervention and will inform the next phase of the INSIEME project, which aims to develop and implement tailored strategies that address the specific needs of healthcare workers and institutions nationwide
α-Cyclodextrins for stability enhancement of bioactive-rich tomato oil extracted with supercritical CO2: Emulsion performance under thermal and UV-C treatments
No full textSupercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) extraction offers a sustainable method for obtaining solvent-free oils rich in bioactive molecules, valuable for nutraceutical and functional food products. However, the limited stability of certain extract components can hinder their application.
This study explores α, β, and γ cyclodextrins (CDs) as emulsifiers to enhance SC-CO2-extracted tomato oil (TO) stability. TO/CD emulsions with high oil volume fractions (φ) of 60 %, 65 %, 70 %, and 75 % were prepared using the three types of CDs. Only α-CDs formed gel-like, stable emulsions up to φ = 70 %. Confocal microscopy revealed that increasing φ led to morphological changes, including reduced droplet size, decreased roundness, and larger coalescence zones, affecting stability and functionality. Emulsions at φ 60 % showed optimal performance with reduced phase separation, high viscosity, smaller droplet size, and lower coalescence.
The stability of carotenoids and tocopherols was evaluated under heat (50 °C) and UV-C exposure to simulate accelerated aging and sterilization. Emulsions improved carotenoid stability at elevated temperatures compared to bulk TO. Tocopherols were highly stable in bulk TO and moderately stable in TO/α-CD emulsions. Under UV-C exposure, TO/α-CD emulsions enhanced carotenoid and tocopherol stability for up to 9 h, compared to pure TO.
Further analysis with α-CDs and synthetic glyceryl trioctanoate (GTO) at φ = 60 %, 65 %, and 70 % replicated the concentrations of lycopene and α-tocopherol in TO. These results suggest that TO/α-CD emulsions can serve as stable, high-quality ingredients for nutraceutical and functional food applications
Multimodal Artwork Topic Modeling via Fine-Tuned CLIP and Knowledge-Driven Prompts
No full textWe propose a novel multimodal topic modeling framework to extract and explain latent themes in extensive collections of digitized artworks. Our approach leverages CLIP's contrastive pre-training to encode images and textual metadata into a shared semantic space. We fine-tune CLIP on a domain-specific dataset built from ArtGraph, an art-domain knowledge graph containing over 100k artworks enriched with curated metadata. Using the resulting multimodal embeddings, we perform clustering to uncover latent visual topics and associate each cluster with descriptive terms via cosine similarity with templated textual prompts. Finally, to further interpret the discovered topics, we employ LLaVA to generate textual summaries based on representative images. Our framework demonstrates promising performance in terms of topic coherence and diversity, evaluated through both visual and textual metrics. The method is unsupervised, easily adaptable, and provides interpretable outputs, making it suitable for applications in digital humanities, cultural heritage analysis, and content-based art retrieval
mRNA expression, tumor heterogeneity, and response to therapy in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma treated with immune-based combinations (ARON-1α)
No full textBackground: Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) represents a spectrum of tumors, characterized by heterogeneous growth patterns, histology and response to immune-based combinations. Objectives: The aim of the present retrospective analysis was to investigate the mRNA expression of 32 genes associated with RCC carcinogenesis and their potential involvement in patients treated with first-line immune-based combination therapies. Additionally, we examined the role of tumor heterogeneity by comparing mRNA expression levels between primary renal tumors and metastatic sites in a group of patients included in the ARON-1 study. Patients and methods: The study included patients with advanced RCC treated with first-line immune-based therapies. Total RNA was extracted from fixed paraffin-embedded tissue slices using the RNeasy FFPE Mini Kit. Quantitative RT-PCR was performed using the IQ5 Multicolor real-time PCR detection system. Coefficient of variations were calculated for each gene and compared between primary and metastatic samples. Results: 17 patients were included in this analysis; 9 of them had both primary and metastatic samples available. Three of the 4 patients showing the highest mRNA expression levels of the 32 analyzed genes reported complete remissions, while 2 of the 3 patients with the lowest expression levels were primary refractory to first-line therapy. As for tumor heterogeneity, VEGFA was the only gene significantly deregulated in the paired comparison. Conclusions: We showed differences in mRNA expression between primary and metastatic sites, and proposed a possible link to the response to first-line immune combination therapies. Additional research is required to clarify their potential as prognostic or predictive biomarkers
From desire to destruction: addiction, jealousy, and mental disorder in an Italian femicide case
No full textThis contribution aims to analyse an Italian femicide case that progressed through three levels of trial up to the Supreme Court of Cassation and required an expert opinion. This analysis will address specific forensic psychiatry issues inherent to this field, i.e., the interaction between addiction, jealousy, and mental disorder in a femicide case, which necessitates a comprehensive understanding of both criminology and legal medicine. On one hand, the nosographic setup of the so-called dual diagnosis (in the case examined, there was alcohol addiction and a borderline personality disorder), together with conditions inherent to a personality disorder (in this specific case, at least a borderline state or actually marginal manifest disease) that integrated an infirmity with legal relevance. Both conditions were inserted in a relational context of dysfunctional and collusive characters in which the victim’s personality caused her, at a victimological level, to become an active partner co-responsible for the criminal act