1,721,073 research outputs found
Transplant Immunobiology
No full textWhen a solid organ is transplanted from a nonidentical individual into a recipient, several actors start to play a role to develop an immune response aiming at getting rid of the foreign tissue. This response is called “allorecognition” and involves cells belonging to the recipient’s immune system and to the graft, interacting in a process ultimately evolving to rejection if not properly prevented pharmacologically. Some events occur before donation and induce pro-inflammatory asset of the vascular tree of the organ, The ischemic phase further amplify the inflammatory asset of endothelial cells which represent the first contact site between donor and recipient. Both professional and non-professional antigen presenting cells are recruited to present the graft antigens, as whole molecules or processed, to the lymphoid cells and start the adaptive immune response. Multiple cellular components of the graft and the recipient participate in allorecognition and from the comprehension of these mechanisms new drugs are continuously proposed to modify the phenomenon and allow the long term tolerance of the foreign transplanted organ
Old and New Treatment Options in IgA Nephropathy and Henoch Schönlein Purpura Nephritis/IgA Vasculitis in Children
No full textPurpose of review: Henoch-Schönlein purpura nephritis (HSPN), known currently as nephritis associated with IgA vasculitis (IgAVN), and IgA nephropathy (IgAN) share pathogenetic mechanisms and almost indistinguishable histology, but have peculiar clinical behavior and outcome. Recent classifications, clinical trials, and discussions lead to critical revision of old and new treatments. Recent findings: In recent years, the histological classification of IgAN Oxford-MEST allowed the identification of histological and clinical risk factors for progression of IgAN and encouraged new studies to explore the value of different treatments, allowing a more standardized classification of enrolled patients. For HSPN, large clinical studies are lacking, and the old histological classifications available do not allow such a precise standardization. However, new efforts are made to follow the IgAN pipeline. Personalized therapies are being forecast, tailored according to histological and clinical risk factors implemented by more innovative biomarkers. The aim is to efficaciously treat both diseases in the earlier phases. The inflammatory process can be completely extinguished if treated adequately without delay, with a high percentage of permanent complete remission in children. Summary: The state-of-the-art knowledge of the elements useful to choose the appropriate treatment in HSPN/IgAVN and IgAN in children is reviewed
Hippocampal Pruning as a New Theory of Schizophrenia Etiopathogenesis
No full textPruning in neurons has been suggested to be strongly involved in Schizophrenia’s (SKZ) etiopathogenesis in recent biological, imaging, and genetic studies. We investigated the impact of protein-coding genes known to be involved in pruning, collected by a systematic literature research, in shaping the risk for SKZ in a case–control sample of 9,490 subjects (Psychiatric Genomics Consortium). Moreover, their modifications through evolution (humans, chimpanzees, and rats) and subcellular localization (as indicative of their biological function) were also investigated. We also performed a biological pathways (Gene Ontology) analysis. Genetics analyses found four genes (DLG1, NOS1, THBS4, and FADS1) and 17 pathways strongly involved in pruning and SKZ in previous literature findings to be significantly associated with the sample under analysis. The analysis of the subcellular localization found that secreted genes, and so regulatory ones, are the least conserved through evolution and also the most associated with SKZ. Their cell line and regional brain expression analysis found that their areas of primary expression are neuropil and the hippocampus, respectively. At the best of our knowledge, for the first time, we were able to describe the SKZ neurodevelopmental hypothesis starting from a single biological process. We can also hypothesize how alterations in pruning fine regulation and orchestration, strongly related with the evolutionary newest (and so more sensitive) secreted proteins, may be of particular relevance in the hippocampus. This early alteration may lead to a mis-structuration of neural connectivity, resulting in the different brain alteration that characterizes SKZ patients
Clinical genetic screening in adult patients with kidney disease
No full textExpanded accessibility ofgenetic sequencing technologies, suchas chromosomal microarray and massively parallel sequencing approaches, is changing the management of hereditary kidney diseases. Genetic causes account for a substantial proportion of pediatric kidney disease cases, and with increased utilization of diagnostic genetic testing in nephrology, they are now also detected at appreciable frequencies in adult populations. Establishing a molecular diagnosis can have many potential benefits for patient care, such as guiding treatment, familial testing, and providing deeper insights on the molecular pathogenesis of kidney diseases. Today, with wider clinical use of genetic testing as part of the diagnostic evaluation, nephrologists have the challenging task of selecting the most suitable genetic test foreach patient,andthenapplying the results intothe appropriate clinical contexts. This review is intended to familiarize nephrologists with the various technical, logistical, and ethical considerations accompanying the increasing utilization of genetic testing in nephrology care
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Imola (BO) - Musei Civici / Schede di catalogo
No full textSchede di catalogo dei materiali numismatici di età romana repubblicana pertinenti al gruzzolo di San Cassiano, conservati presso i Musei Civici di Imola (Bologna
The impact of early visual deprivation on spatial hearing: A comparison between totally and partially visually deprived children
No full textThe specific role of early visual deprivation on spatial hearing is still unclear, mainly due to the difficulty of comparing similar spatial skills at different ages and to the difficulty in recruiting young blind children from birth. In this study, the effects of early visual deprivation on the development of auditory spatial localization have been assessed in a group of seven 3-5 years old children with congenital blindness (n = 2; light perception or no perception of light) or low vision (n = 5; visual acuity range 1.1-1.7 LogMAR), with the main aim to understand if visual experience is fundamental to the development of specific spatial skills. Our study led to three main findings: firstly, totally blind children performed overall more poorly compared sighted and low vision children in all the spatial tasks performed; secondly, low vision children performed equally or better than sighted children in the same auditory spatial tasks; thirdly, higher residual levels of visual acuity are positively correlated with better spatial performance in the dynamic condition of the auditory localization task indicating that the more residual vision the better spatial performance. These results suggest that early visual experience has an important role in the development of spatial cognition, even when the visual input during the critical period of visual calibration is partially degraded like in the case of low vision children. Overall these results shed light on the importance of early assessment of spatial impairments in visually impaired children and early intervention to prevent the risk of isolation and social exclusion
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