340 research outputs found
Economic factors affecting obesity: an application in Italy
No full textThe World Health Organization has stated that obesity is spreading around the world like a “global epidemic”. In 2004 the percentage of obese people in the Italian population was 9%, but the trend s increasing in recent years. Focusing on this country, the purpose of the paper is to analyze the socio-economic variables affecting obesity by means of a survey conducted in a consumer sample. Our analysis is based on a survey conducted in Italy, and the sample was composed of 999 consumers. We used a binary logit model and the dependent variable is body mass index (BMI), expressed in a dichotomic way (seriously overweight and obese, value 1, and normal weight, value 0). The results show that the condition of the seriously overweight and obese increases with age, especially in people over 65 of age. Also gender is correlated with the pathology: being seriously overweight and obese is far more likely for men than for women. An inverse relation was shown between obesity and education, and between obesity and the level of food knowledge. The results highlight that disadvantaged social categories are more susceptible to the problem of overweight and obesity. A policy implication of the analysis, to limit the spread of obesity, could lie in programs aimed at improving health and food awareness and focused on these minority groups.economics of obesity, BMI and consumer, logit model, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,
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No full textDetecting pathogens and mounting immune responses upon infection is crucial for animal health. However, these responses come at a high metabolic price (McKean and Lazzaro, 2011, Kominsky et al., 2010), and avoiding pathogens before infection may be advantageous. The bacterial endotoxins lipopolysaccharides (LPS) are important immune system infection cues (Abbas et al., 2014), but it remains unknown whether animals possess sensory mechanisms to detect them prior to infection. Here we show that Drosophila melanogaster display strong aversive responses to LPS and that gustatory neurons expressing Gr66a bitter receptors mediate avoidance of LPS in feeding and egg laying assays. We found the expression of the chemosensory cation channel dTRPA1 in these cells to be necessary and sufficient for LPS avoidance. Furthermore, LPS stimulates Drosophila neurons in a TRPA1-dependent manner and activates exogenous dTRPA1 channels in human cells. Our findings demonstrate that flies detect bacterial endotoxins via a gustatory pathway through TRPA1 activation as conserved molecular mechanism.sponsorship: Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie Alessia Soldano Luis Franco Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Bassem A Hassanr Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0702.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0077.15 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0680.10 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0681.10 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0503.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0654.15 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0761.10N Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0596.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0565.07 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar KU Leuven GOA/14/011 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar European Commission IUAP P7/13 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekensr KU Leuven OT/12/091 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar KU Leuven PF-TRPLe Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talavera (Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0702.12, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0077.15, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0680.10, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0681.10, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0503.12, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0654.15, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0761.10N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0596.12, KU Leuven|GOA/14/011, KU Leuven|OT/12/091, European Commission|IUAP P7/13, KU Leuven PF-TRPLe)status: Publishe
sj-xlsx-1-tmj-10.1177_03008916221081891 – Supplemental material for The effect of peripheral regional analgesia in thoracic surgery: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials
No full textSupplemental material, sj-xlsx-1-tmj-10.1177_03008916221081891 for The effect of peripheral regional analgesia in thoracic surgery: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials by Eleonora Balzani, Giulio Luca Rosboch, Edoardo Ceraolo, Paraskevas Lyberis, Claudia Filippini, Federico Piccioni, Francesco Guerrera, Enrico Ruffini, Alessia Pedoto and Luca Brazzi in Tumori Journal</p
sj-xlsx-2-tmj-10.1177_03008916221081891 – Supplemental material for The effect of peripheral regional analgesia in thoracic surgery: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials
No full textSupplemental material, sj-xlsx-2-tmj-10.1177_03008916221081891 for The effect of peripheral regional analgesia in thoracic surgery: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials by Eleonora Balzani, Giulio Luca Rosboch, Edoardo Ceraolo, Paraskevas Lyberis, Claudia Filippini, Federico Piccioni, Francesco Guerrera, Enrico Ruffini, Alessia Pedoto and Luca Brazzi in Tumori Journal</p
Complementary contribution of the medial and lateral human parietal cortex to grasping: a repetitive TMS study
No full textThe dexterous control of our grasping actions relies on the cooperative activation of many brain areas. In the parietal lobe, 2 grasp-related areas collaborate to orchestrate an accurate grasping action: dorsolateral area AIP and dorsomedial area V6A. Single-cell recordings in monkeys and fMRI studies in humans have suggested that both these areas specify grip aperture and wrist orientation, but encode these grasping parameters differently, depending on the context. To elucidate the causal role of phAIP and hV6A, we stimulated these areas, while participants were performing grasping actions (unperturbed grasping). rTMS over phAIP impaired the wrist orientation process, whereas stimulation over hV6A impaired grip aperture encoding. In a small percentage of trials, an unexpected reprogramming of grip aperture or wrist orientation was required (perturbed grasping). In these cases, rTMS over hV6A or over phAIP impaired reprogramming of both grip aperture and wrist orientation. These results represent the first direct demonstration of a different encoding of grasping parameters by 2 grasp-related parietal areas
Functional Connectivity at Rest between the Human Medial Posterior Parietal Cortex and the Primary Motor Cortex Detected by Paired-Pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
No full textThe medial posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is involved in the complex processes of visuomotor
integration. Its connections to the dorsal premotor cortex, which in turn is connected to the
primary motor cortex (M1), complete the fronto-parietal network that supports important cognitive
functions in the planning and execution of goal-oriented movements. In this study, we wanted
to investigate the time-course of the functional connectivity at rest between the medial PPC and
the M1 using dual-site transcranial magnetic stimulation in healthy humans. We stimulated the
left M1 using a suprathreshold test stimulus to elicit motor-evoked potentials in the hand, and a
subthreshold conditioning stimulus was applied over the left medial PPC at different inter-stimulus
intervals (ISIs). The conditioning stimulus affected the M1 excitability depending on the ISI, with
inhibition at longer ISIs (12 and 15 ms). We suggest that these modulations may reflect the activation
of different parieto-frontal pathways, with long latency inhibitions likely recruiting polisynaptic
pathways, presumably through anterolateral PPC
“Trattamento delle neoplasie del colon destro.Tecniche a confronto:chirurgia robotica versus laparoscopica. Nostra esperienza”
No full textCONFRONTO TRA TECNICA ROBOTICA E LAPAROSCOPICA NELL'EMICOLECTOMIA DX PER CANCRO SU 74 PAZIENTI TRATTATI DAL LUGLIO DEL 2009 ALL'AGOSTO DEL 2013, VALUTAZIONE DI TEMPI OPERATORI, DEGENZA MEDIA, RIPRESA DELLE FUNZIONI FISIOLOGICHE, ESAME ISTOLOGIC
Social Network to analyse the relationship between ‘victim-author’ and ‘motivation’ of violence against women in Italy.
No full textThe paper aims to analyse the phenomenon of Violence against women in the Italian context during 2020. It proposes to study the relationship between ‘victim-author’ and ‘motivation’ in femicides committed in domestic environment. By means of the properties of the Social Network Analysis on bimodal data, the study detected main actors and motivations that generated the homicides with female victims. At the same time, the structural relationships allowed to investigate the existence of motivations that better characterized the action of the various actors. The bipartite graph visualization and centrality scores calculated have demonstrated the effectiveness of the methodology for the pursued objectives
Modeling Early Phases of COVID-19 Pandemic in Northern Italy and Its Implication for Outbreak Diffusion
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has sparked an intense debate about the hidden factors
underlying the dynamics of the outbreak. Several computational models have been
proposed to inform effective social and healthcare strategies. Crucially, the predictive
validity of these models often depends upon incorporating behavioral and social
responses to infection. Among these tools, the analytic framework known as “dynamic
causal modeling” (DCM) has been applied to the COVID-19 pandemic, shedding new
light on the factors underlying the dynamics of the outbreak. We have applied DCM
to data from northern Italian regions, the first areas in Europe to contend with the
outbreak, and analyzed the predictive validity of the model and also its suitability in
highlighting the hidden factors governing the pandemic diffusion. By taking into account
data from the beginning of the pandemic, the model could faithfully predict the dynamics
of outbreak diffusion varying from region to region. The DCM appears to be a reliable tool
to investigate the mechanisms governing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 to identify the
containment and control strategies that could efficiently be used to counteract further
waves of infection
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