Distribution and state of fishery resources in the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea using trawl surveys data

The Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries represents the most recent research line in the international context, showing interest both towards the whole community and toward the identification and protection of all the “critical habitats” in which marine resources complete their life cycles. Using data coming from trawl surveys performed in the Northern and Central Adriatic from 1996 to 2010, this study provides the first attempt to appraise the status of the whole demersal community. It took into account not only fishery target species but also by-catch and discharge species by the use of a suite of biological indicators both at population and multi-specific level, allowing to have a global picture of the status of the demersal system. This study underlined the decline of extremely important species for the Adriatic fishery in recent years; adverse impact on catches is expected for these species in the coming years, since also minimum values of recruits recently were recorded. Both the excessive exploitation and environmental factors affected availability of resources. Moreover both distribution and nursery areas of the most important resources were pinpointed by means of geostatistical methods. The geospatial analysis also confirmed the presence of relevant recruitment areas in the North and Central Adriatic for several commercial species, as reported in the literature. The morphological and oceanographic features, the relevant rivers inflow together with the mosaic pattern of biocenoses with different food availability affected the location of the observed relevant nursery areas.

Regulation of wake-sleep states and state-dependent cardiovascular function in diet-induced obesity rats

Obesity often predisposes to coronary heart disease, heart failure, and sudden death. Also, several studies suggest a reciprocal enhancing interaction between obesity and sleep curtailment. Aim of the present study was to go deeper in the understanding of sleep and cardiovascular regulation in an animal model of diet-induced obesity (DIO). According to this, Wake-Sleep (W-S) regulation, and W-S dependent regulation of cardiovascular and metabolic/thermoregulatory function was studied in DIO rats, under normal laboratory conditions and during sleep deprivation and the following recovery period, enhancing either wake or sleep, respectively. After 8 weeks of the delivery of a hypercaloric (HC) diet, treated animals were heavier than those fed a normocaloric (NC) diet (NC: 441 ±17g; HC: 557±17g). HC rats slept more than NC ones during the activity period (Dark) of the normal 12h:12h light-dark (LD) cycle (Wake: 67.3±1.2% and 57.2 ±1.6%; NREM sleep (NREMS): 26.8±1.0% and 34.0±1.4%; REM sleep (REMS): 5.7±0. 6% and 8.6±0.7%; for NC and HC, respectively; p<0.05 for all). HC rats were hypertensive throughout the W-S states, as shown by the mean arterial blood pressure values across the 24-h period (Wake: 90.0±5.3 and 97.3±1.3; NREMS: 85.1±5.5 and 92.2±1.2; REMS: 87.2±4.5 and 96.5±1.1, mmHg for NC and HC, respectively; p<0.05 for all). Also, HC rats appeared to be slightly bradycardic compared to NC ones (Wake: 359.8±9.3 and 352.4±7.7; NREMS: 332.5±10.1 and 328.9±5.4; REMS: 338.5±9.3 and 334.4±5.8; bpm for NC and HC, respectively; p<0.05 for Wake). In HC animals, sleep regulation was not apparently altered during the sleep rebound observed in the recovery period following sleep deprivation, although REMS rebound appeared to be quicker in NC animals. In conclusion, these results indicate that in the rat obesity interfere with W-S and cardiovascular regulation and that DIO rats are suitable for further studies aimed at a better understanding of obesity comorbidities.

Reconstruction and analysis of the NF-kB pathway interactome: a systems biology approach

Background. One of the phenomena observed in human aging is the progressive increase of a systemic inflammatory state, a condition referred to as “inflammaging”, negatively correlated with longevity. A prominent mediator of inflammation is the transcription factor NF-kB, that acts as key transcriptional regulator of many genes coding for pro-inflammatory cytokines. Many different signaling pathways activated by very diverse stimuli converge on NF-kB, resulting in a regulatory network characterized by high complexity. NF-kB signaling has been proposed to be responsible of inflammaging. Scope of this analysis is to provide a wider, systemic picture of such intricate signaling and interaction network: the NF-kB pathway interactome. Methods. The study has been carried out following a workflow for gathering information from literature as well as from several pathway and protein interactions databases, and for integrating and analyzing existing data and the relative reconstructed representations by using the available computational tools. Strong manual intervention has been necessarily used to integrate data from multiple sources into mathematically analyzable networks. The reconstruction of the NF-kB interactome pursued with this approach provides a starting point for a general view of the architecture and for a deeper analysis and understanding of this complex regulatory system. Results. A “core” and a “wider” NF-kB pathway interactome, consisting of 140 and 3146 proteins respectively, were reconstructed and analyzed through a mathematical, graph-theoretical approach. Among other interesting features, the topological characterization of the interactomes shows that a relevant number of interacting proteins are in turn products of genes that are controlled and regulated in their expression exactly by NF-kB transcription factors. These “feedback loops”, not always well-known, deserve deeper investigation since they may have a role in tuning the response and the output consequent to NF-kB pathway initiation, in regulating the intensity of the response, or its homeostasis and balance in order to make the functioning of such critical system more robust and reliable. This integrated view allows to shed light on the functional structure and on some of the crucial nodes of thet NF-kB transcription factors interactome. Conclusion. Framing structure and dynamics of the NF-kB interactome into a wider, systemic picture would be a significant step toward a better understanding of how NF-kB globally regulates diverse gene programs and phenotypes. This study represents a step towards a more complete and integrated view of the NF-kB signaling system.

The school environment as a teacher. The role of space and place in enhancing ecological literacy and social competence development in children and young people

Can space and place foster child development, and in particular social competence and ecological literacy? If yes, how can space and place do that? This study shows that the answer to the first question is positive and then tries to explain the way space and place can make a difference. The thesis begins with the review of literature from different disciplines – child development and child psychology, education, environmental psychology, architecture and landscape architecture. Some bridges among such disciplines are created and in some cases the ideas from the different areas of research merge: thus, this is an interdisciplinary study. The interdisciplinary knowledge from these disciplines is translated into a range of design suggestions that can foster the development of social competence and ecological literacy. Using scientific knowledge from different disciplines is a way of introducing forms of evidence into the development of design criteria. However, the definition of design criteria also has to pass through the study of a series of school buildings and un-built projects: case studies can give a positive contribution to the criteria because examples and good practices can help “translating” the theoretical knowledge into design ideas and illustrations. To do that, the different case studies have to be assessed in relation to the various themes that emerged in the literature review. Finally, research by design can be used to help define the illustrated design criteria: based on all the background knowledge that has been built, the role of the architect is to provide a series of different design solutions that can give answers to the different “questions” emerged in the literature review.

Spinal cord injury: assessment of autonomic state-dependent control of cardiovascular system and body core temperature

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results not only in paralysis; but it is also associated with a range of autonomic dysregulation that can interfere with cardiovascular, bladder, bowel, temperature, and sexual function. The entity of the autonomic dysfunction is related to the level and severity of injury to descending autonomic (sympathetic) pathways. For many years there was limited awareness of these issues and the attention given to them by the scientific and medical community was scarce. Yet, even if a new system to document the impact of SCI on autonomic function has recently been proposed, the current standard of assessment of SCI (American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) examination) evaluates motor and sensory pathways, but not severity of injury to autonomic pathways. Beside the severe impact on quality of life, autonomic dysfunction in persons with SCI is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Therefore, obtaining information regarding autonomic function in persons with SCI is pivotal and clinical examinations and laboratory evaluations to detect the presence of autonomic dysfunction and quantitate its severity are mandatory. Furthermore, previous studies demonstrated that there is an intimate relationship between the autonomic nervous system and sleep from anatomical, physiological, and neurochemical points of view. Although, even if previous epidemiological studies demonstrated that sleep problems are common in spinal cord injury (SCI), so far only limited polysomnographic (PSG) data are available. Finally, until now, circadian and state dependent autonomic regulation of blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and body core temperature (BcT) were never assessed in SCI patients. Aim of the current study was to establish the association between the autonomic control of the cardiovascular function and thermoregulation, sleep parameters and increased cardiovascular risk in SCI patients.