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Introduction Every year more than 300,000 proximal femur fractures are diagnosed. Their number will double within 30 years. In femoral neck fractures treated with hip hemiarthroplasty 90-days mortality is 29.5-51.6%. Haemorrhage is one amongst other complications that is associated with increasing postoperative mortality. Transfusion rate in these patients ranges from 25.7% to 39%. Blood transfusions expose to complications. Fibrin sealants are useful in reducing perioperative need for transfusions, total blood loss, blood loss from drainage. The aim of this study is to assess whether the use of a fibrin sealant during hip hemiarthroplasty implant reduces the need for transfusion. Patient and methods All patients admitted with a proximal femur fracture from September 2018 to May 2019 were reviewed. Inclusion criteria were: femoral neck fracture AO 31B2-3, hip hemiarthroplasty. Exclusion criteria were: previous surgery on the affected hip, coagulation disorders, hematopoietic disorders. Patients were divided in fibrin sealant group and control group. All patients underwent partial hip replacement through a posterolateral approach. 4 ml of fibrin sealant (EVICEL, Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, Diegem, Belgium) were sprayed on the soft tissues of patients included in the fibrin sealant group. Primary outcome of our study was need for perioperative transfusion. Secondary outcomes were: mean red blood cell transfused volume, variations in haematocrit and haemoglobin and total blood volume loss. Results Eighty-one consecutive patients were enrolled. EVICEL was used on 19 patients, standard haemostatic care on 62 patients. Two patients were transfused in the fibrin sealant group, 22 in the control group (p 0,0371). Mean transfused volume was 21,05 ml in the fibrin sealant group and 116,16 ml in the control group (p 0,0017). No significant difference could be found in haematocrit and haemoglobin variation and total blood loss. Discussion A reduction in transfusional need with the use of fibrin sealants was reported in studies on total hip arthroplasty and was confirmed by our study. Conclusion EVICEL reduces need for transfusion in patients undergoing hip hemiarthroplasty for a femoral neck fracture. It must be held among the options when a stricter control on transfusional requirement is needed.

Introduction Incidence of hip fractures is increasing with upward estimates representing one of the most current health problems. According to some authors this condition is associated with an early mortality rate ranging between 20% and 35% and low outcomes. One of the predictive factors of poor outcome after hip fracture is anaemia. In fragile patients, hormonal changes due to fracture and surgical trauma, may occur in the hypophyseal hypothalamus axis which may lead to the Euthyroid Sick Syndrome (ESS). This pathological condition is characterized by a reduction in the concentration of triiodothyronine (T3) with normal or slightly reduced thyrotropin (TSH) values and with or without a reduction (cancellata) ​​of thyroxine (T4). ESS has been associated to an increased mortality in elderly patients. Materials and methods Inclusion criteria were: age > 65y, X-ray diagnosis of proximal femoral fracture classified as AO 31A or 31B requiring surgical treatment, admittance to the emergency room within 72 hours from trauma. Exclusion criteria were: any thyroid-related pathology, concomitant acute coronary syndrome, active pneumonia, concomitant neoplastic disease, assumption of medications able to affect thyroid function, refusal to undergo surgical treatment. All patients underwent routine blood testing and a complete thyroid-hormone profile dosage before surgical operation. The same blood tests performed before surgical operation were repeated on the first and third post-operative days. Results Thirtytwo patients met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled after they accepted to participate to the study. Sixteen patients presented with ESS on admission and 16 patients did not. The mean age was 82,5 yo. There was no statistically significant difference in bleeding risk factors among the two groups. In the ESS group there was a number of blood transfusions of 1.06 units higher than the control group (p=0.01). Conclusions We have demonstrated that patients with ESS have a higher need of red blood cells transfusion compared to patients without ESS and, thus they have a higher risk to develop anemia in the peri-operative period. We believe it would be useful to diagnose ESS in fragile patients at their arrival to the emergency room and apply a peri-operative therapeutic protocol to prevent anemia.

Two different luminescent rhenium complexes, having the general formula [Re2(μ-Cl)2(CO)6(μ-1,2-diazine)] and containing two different diazine ligands, namely 4-(pyridazin-4-yl)-butanoic acid (Re-1) and 8-(5-methylpyridazin-4-yl)-octanoic acid (Re-2), were prepared. Exploiting the presence of the carboxylic acid moieties, both complexes were further covalently linked to a 20-mer oligomer (PNA1), bearing a nucleobase sequence complementary to that of mature miR-21–5p (5′-TCAACATCAGTCTGATAAGCTA-3′), as well as to a 20-mer oligomer (PNA2) used as a negative control bearing the sequence 5′-GTGTAACACGTCCTATACGCC-3’. The resulting four Re-PNA conjugates were characterized and used to target miR-21 in the DU145 prostate cancer cell line. The conjugation with PNA did not perturb the photoluminescence behavior of the organometallic fragments: emission from 3MLCT excited states, centered in a range between 580 and 610 nm, was observed, with satisfactory photoluminescence quantum yields (Φ = ca. 0.03–0.01, in aerated water/acetonitrile solution 1/1). Experiments of cell uptake, performed with living prostate cancer cells showed that the length of the aliphatic linker between the rhenium complex and the PNA sequence, strongly affects the cellular localization.

Modification of the properties of organic molecules by means of conjugation with transition metals to obtain organometallic systems with improved reactivity, spectroscopic, and chemico-physical properties, is a long-standing strategy. This approach has yielded excellent results in many research fields due to its versatility, with infinite possible combinations of transition metals and organic systems. This review focuses on the most innovative results of the authors’ research in the field of organometallic conjugates of peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) and 7-thiahelicenes. In both cases, the presence of the metal gives the organic molecule with specific chemico-physical properties, which can be useful for applications in catalysis, imaging, electrochemical and, spectroscopic analysis. In particular, the conjugation of PNA, with transition metal complexes involving chromium and iron makes it possible to achieve significant IR and electrochemical detection at a very low concentration without affecting the specificity and efficiency of PNA/DNA binding. Dinuclear Re-PNA conjugates were rapidly internalised in DU145 and PC3 prostate cancer cells. This confirmed the fundamental role of the metal in increasing the cell uptake of PNA, and favoured the down-regulation of the expression of the miR-21. The complexation of 7-thiahelicenes with different metals was first performed to obtain systems with improved nonlinear optical properties. Enantiomerically pure gold complexes of phosphorus-containing 7-thiahelicenes gave high enantiomeric excess in a number of asymmetric reactions.

Particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) can be considered as the most dangerous air pollutant that affects human health. In addition, technological advances, such as those involving the Internet of Things (IoT) for monitoring air quality, have made it possible to monitor air quality for a lower cost. However, missing values and noisy data make nonlinear data provided by air quality IoT sensors less reliable and more complicated than data provided by air quality monitoring stations. In this study, we propose a mixed edge-based and cloud-based framework with the final goal of PM2.5 value prediction. In order to validate the proposed approach, we evaluate the quality of predictions using both original and preprocessed data on a real-world dataset from air quality sensors distributed in Calgary, Canada. Obtained results show an average improvement of 40.18% of the prediction accuracy on Mean Absolute Percentage Error by using the proposed preprocessing technique.

Wind tunnel (WT) experiments were conducted to reproduce the wind-induced deviation of rain drop trajectories when approaching the collector of catching-type gauges. Three typical outer shapes of the instrument body (cylindrical, inverted-conical and “chimney” shapes) were tested using full-scale models. The airflow pattern upstream of and above the collector was measured with a Particle Image Velocimetry technique, after injecting a passive tracer in the flow. Tests were performed by releasing water drops in the WT flow to mimic the raindrops fall. The drop trajectories near the gauge collector were tracked and quantitatively measured using a high-speed camera. The deviation of the trajectories, induced by the bluff-body aerodynamics of the gauge, is interpreted here by comparing the measured airflow pattern around the three instruments to highlight the effect of their different outer shapes. The “chimney” shape, that is typical of some weighing type gauges, demonstrated lower performance with respect to the cylindrical and inverted-conical shape, showing the most relevant effect in deviating the trajectories of the approaching drops when immersed in a wind field.

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are among the most interesting and versatile artificial structural mimics of nucleic acids and exhibit peculiar and important properties (i.e. high chemical stability, and a high resistance to cellular enzymes and nucleases). Despite their unnatural structure, they are able to recognize and bind DNA and RNA in a very high, specific and selective manner. One of the most popular, easy and reliable method to measure the stability of PNA-DNA hybrid systems is the melting temperature but the thermodynamic data are obtained using a big quantity of materials failing to provide information on the kinetics of the interaction. In the present work, the PNA decamer 6 , with the TCACTAGATG sequence of nucleobases, and the corresponding fluorescent PNA-FITU (fluorescein isothiourea) decamer 8 were synthesized with standard manual Boc-based chemistry. The interaction of the PNA-FITU with parallel and antiparallel DNA has been studied by stopped-flow fluorescence, which is proposed as an alternative technique to obtain the kinetic parameters of the binding. The great advantage of using the stopped-flow technique is the possibility of studying the kinetics of the PNA-DNA duplex formation in a physiological environment. In particular, fluorescence stopped-flow technique has been exploited to compare the affinity of two PNA-DNA duplexes since it can discriminate between parallel and antiparallel DNA binding.

A novel drug delivery nanosystem was here designed, linking thiahelicenes to halloysite nanotubes. Tetrathia[7]helicenes are very promising DNA intercalators, whose usage in biomedical field has been so far limited by their poor bioavailability. The study of appropriate drug delivery systems is needed to exploit helicenes as therapeutics. In this work, imine chemistry was adopted to covalently attach the bioactive compound and release it in acidic environments such as those surrounding tumour cells. To this aim, halloysite nanotubes were functionalized with (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane. The latter acted as linker providing NH2 groups to react with the formyl moiety of the thiahelicene derivative. The nanoconstruct preparation was studied in depth by surface-sensitive spectroscopies and angle-resolved X-ray absorption, to investigate the attachment mode, surface coverage and molecular orientation of the thiahelicene units. Release tests were carried out also in vitro on two tumour cell lines with different extracellular pH values. Mildly acidic pH conditions catalyzed the hydrolysis of the imine bond and promoted the cytotoxic compound release, which proved selective to slight pH differences, confirming the potential of this novel nanoconstruct.

In this paper, we propose a framework that aims at handling metrics among strings defined over heterogeneous alphabets. Furthermore, we illustrate in detail its application to generalize one of the most important string metrics, namely the edit distance. This last activity leads us to define the Multi-Parameterized Edit Distance (MPED). As for this last metric, we investigate its computational properties and solution algorithms, and we present several experiments for its evaluation. As a final contribution, we provide several notes about some possible applications of MPED and other generalized metrics in different scenarios.

The Pd- and Cu-mediated reaction of a large variety of π-electron sufficient heteroarenes, which include free (NH)-imidazoles, -benzimidazole and -indole, with aryl iodides under ligandless and base-free conditions provides regioselectively the required 2-arylheterocycle derivatives in high yields. 2-Aryl-1-phenyl-1H-imidazoles can also be prepared by a one-pot domino HALEX and Pd- and Cu-mediated arylation reactions of 1-phenyl-1H-imidazole with activated and unactivated aryl bromides under base-free and ligandless conditions. The protocol for the synthesis of 2-arylazoles involving the use of aryl iodides has been found to be suitable for the efficient preparation of three bioactive compounds and a key intermediate in the synthesis of a heparanase inhibitor.