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The impact of a fishmeal-free, high plant-protein-based diet, in which vegetable proteins (VPs) were partially substituted with the proteins derived from Hermetia illucens pupae meal (Hi) was examined in the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata). The physiological response at the gastrointestinal level was investigated by considering the gene expression responses and histology at the liver, stomach, pyloric caeca, foregut, midgut, and hindgut. To this end, three iso-proteic (crude protein, Nx6.25, 45 %) and iso-lipidic (crude fat, 20 %) extruded diets were formulated. A control diet (CV), comprising a substantial proportion of vegetable plant-protein (VPs) derivatives, was formulated alongside two test diets. These were created by replacing graded levels of the VPs (20 and 40 %, respectively) with protein derived from Hi (Hi20 and Hi40, respectively). In all dietary treatments, the foregut, midgut, and hindgut exhibited general structural integrity, displaying intact intestinal folds, enterocytes, and no signs of inflammation. However, occasional mild lymphocytic infiltrations of the epithelium and lamina propria were observed in the pyloric caeca of the CV and Hi20 diets. The histological examination of the stomach revealed that the CV diet had induced moderately-severe lymphocytic gastritis, accompanied by a down-regulation of heat shock protein 70 (hsp70). Moderate lymphocytic infiltrations were observed in liver of fish fed with the CV diet, which correlated to a down-regulation of copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (Sod1). In the hindgut, an increase in the expression of Sod1, manganese superoxide dismutase (Sod2), and intestinal alkaline phosphatase (iap) and a decrease in the expression of hsp70 were observed in insect meal-containing diet relative to the CV. Overall, the present study showed that in sea bream a plant-protein based diet lacking in fishmeal negatively affects stomach mucosa, but HI included in a plant-protein-based diet helps in ameliorate histological distortion of tissue through specific correlated gene activations.

ObjectiveThis longitudinal study aimed to quantitatively document and evaluate the implementation and outcomes of the Open Dialogue (OD) approach within Italian Mental Health Departments (MHDs), focusing on the ratings of OD-network meetings by patients and their families and assessing the clinical outcomes over a span of 12 months.ResultsOver the course of the study, 58 patients participated in 517 OD-network meetings, demonstrating a high level of satisfaction with the care received, as evidenced by the Session Rating Scale (SRS) and Outcome Rating Scale (ORS). Clinically, significant improvements were observed in the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE-OM), and the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS), indicating enhanced psychological and social functioning. The SRS scores showed that satisfaction with the meetings increased over time, while the ORS indicated that both patients and their social networks perceived gradual improvements throughout the therapy.ConclusionThe OD approach within Italian MHDs was successfully implemented and well-received by patients and their social networks, yielding significant clinical improvements. These findings suggest the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating the OD model into the Italian public mental health system, supporting its potential for broader application in diverse healthcare settings. The study highlights the importance of continuous engagement and evaluation to maintain high standards of practice and suggests that OD can be a valuable addition to existing mental health care practices, promoting recovery through inclusive, dialogue-based interventions.

The imputation of missing data is a common procedure in data analysis that consists in predicting missing values of incomplete data points. In this work, we analyze a variational quantum circuit for the imputation of missing data. We construct variational quantum circuits with gates complexity $\mathcal {O}(N)$ and $\mathcal {O}(N^{2})$ that return the last missing bit of a binary string for a specific distribution. We train and test the performance of the algorithms on a series of datasets finding good convergence of the results. Finally, we test the circuit for generalization to unseen data. For simple systems, we are able to describe the circuit analytically, making it possible to skip the tedious and unresolved problem of training the circuit with repetitive measurements. We find beforehand the optimal values of the parameters and make use of them to construct an optimal circuit suited to the generation of truly random data.

In this work we investigate the ultrabroadband dynamics of transverse coupled cavity VCSELs. This study is based on a multimode rate equation model, whose parameters are directly provided by a full-wave vectorial electromagnetic solver. This approach sets a step towards the comprehensive physics-based modeling of transverse-coupled cavity VCSELs, providing a relation between the features of the optical supermodes and the enhancements of the intensity modulation response. The approach emphasizes how the bandwidth enhancement, ascribable to a photon-photon resonance picture, can be triggered by forcing asymmetries in the bias and modulation contacting scheme of the device, and the importance of collecting the fields from each single cavity, providing an interpretation of recent experimental observations and paving the way towards more systematic design strategies.

In this work we investigate patterned large-active area AlGaAs vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) targeting high-power single-transverse-mode emission. As a first step, our in-house 3D electromagnetic vectorial mode solver VELMS is validated against preliminary experimental data. Then, VELMS is applied to implement single-mode operation on VCSELs featuring large-area rectangular oxide apertures. A comparative appraisal of different mode selection strategies based on patterning the outcoupling facet of the device is presented, providing a number of alternatives for a broad audience of technologists.

This work reports a multiscale physics-based approach aimed at investigating the benefits of introducing a single tunnel junction (TJ) within conventional AlGaAs Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs). Our comprehensive VCSEL solver VENUS is augmented with a non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) approach to extract the band-to-band tunneling rate across the TJ. To showcase the NEGF-VENUS features, we apply it to the commercial pin oxide confined AlGaAs VCSEL previously investigated by VENUS, by inserting a TJ with minimal variations to the optical resonator. Besides finding the optimal position of TJ and oxide aperture, we can also compare the different hole injection schemes in the active region. Our results show the potential of doubling the maximum output power with the same threshold current, with perspectives of further enhancement by stacking more tunnel junctions.

The dark current is a fundamental figure of merit to characterize the performance of high-sensitivity, low-noise mid- and far-infrared barrier photodetectors. In the context of HgCdTe barrier photodetectors, the trend is to use very low doping concentrations, in an attempt to minimize recombination processes. In the present work, through TCAD simulations, we delve deeper into the design of low-dark-current $p{\mathrm{B}}n$ detectors, showing the possible existence of an optimum doping. This occurrence is investigated and interpreted also by means of closed-form expressions for the lifetimes, emphasizing the role of the interplay between Auger and Shockley-Read-Hall generation processes.

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women globally, making early and accurate detection essential for effective treatment and improved survival rates. This paper presents a method designed to detect and localize breast cancer using deep learning, specifically convolutional neural networks. The approach classifies histological images of breast tissue as either tumor-positive or tumor-negative. We utilize several deep learning models, including a custom-built CNN, EfficientNet, ResNet50, VGG-16, VGG-19, and MobileNet. Fine-tuning was also applied to VGG-16, VGG-19, and MobileNet to enhance performance. Additionally, we introduce a novel deep learning model called MR_Net, aimed at providing a more accurate network for breast cancer detection and localization, potentially assisting clinicians in making informed decisions. This model could also accelerate the diagnostic process, enabling early detection of the disease. Furthermore, we propose a method for explainable predictions by generating heatmaps that highlight the regions within tissue images that the model focuses on when predicting a label, revealing the detection of benign, atypical, and malignant tumors. We evaluate both the quantitative and qualitative performance of MR_Net and the other models, also presenting explainable results that allow visualization of the tissue areas identified by the model as relevant to the presence of breast cancer.

At a time when traditional fieldwork is coming under pressure, be it from shrinking budgets, reducing carbon footprints, increased concerns for personal safety or the desire to make field skills accessible to all, how do we ensure that the key skills of observation, data collection and landscape analysis can still be developed in our students? This paper evaluates the experiences of students using immersive virtual reality (VR) to interrogate highly accurate georeferenced landscape models, made from data collected by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, through the medium of Q methodology. It finds that there appears to be an association between prior engagement and expertise with IT and gaming technologies, such that those who declare some degree of prowess engage with and embrace the opportunities of using VR. This suggests that to allow more students to adopt positive approaches to learning in this manner, educators need to worry less about ever complex and realistic models, and invest more into positive prior experiences of using technology. Moreover, an important voice in the narrative around the physical nature of "being in the field" and social interaction with peers and tutors questions an approach that is still a relatively solitary experience.

The EUSO@TurLab project is an on-going activity aimed to reproduce atmospheric and luminous conditions that JEM-EUSO will encounter on its orbits around the Earth. The use of the TurLab facility, part of the Department of Physics of the University of Torino, allows the simulation of different surface conditions in a very dark and rotating environment in order to test the response of JEM-EUSO's sensors and sensitivity. The experimental setup currently in operation has been used to check the potential of the TurLab facility for the above purposes, and the acquired data will be used to test the concept of JEM-EUSO's trigger system.

Natural wound healing products are in increased demand. The potential for unexplored Sedum species in wound healing was discovered based on benefits of the genus reported in traditional medicine. The objectives were to screen ten Sedum species for wound healing, to ascertain the optimal harvest period using the five best, and finally to investigate effects of extraction protocols on wound healing using the most promising species. Different protocols were used to extract leaf polyphenol and mucilage content. Wound healing was assessed from L929 fibroblast migration. April was the optimal harvest month for wound healing efficacy, whereas the highest polyphenol content and antioxidant activity were evident in September and November. S. album Murales (ALBU), the best candidate, was then compared with S. telephium (TELE), which is well recognized in skin care. The mucilage-containing aqueous extract of ALBU was shown for the first time to induce the highest fibroblast migration after 24 h, not evident in TELE. Moreover, functional constituents contained within the absolute acetone- and isopropanol-containing polyphenol pools from ALBU induced significantly higher migration compared to TELE. A prototype cream, containing the water- and solvent-extracted bioactive compounds was effective at inducing fibroblast migration at 24 h in ALBU. The potential of ALBU in wound healing was evidenced and warrants further investigation.

Background: The present study evaluates the utility of NGS analysis of circulating free DNA (cfDNA), which incorporates small amounts of tumor DNA (ctDNA), at diagnosis or at disease progression (PD) in NSCLC patients. Methods: Comprehensive genomic profiling on cfDNA by NGS were performed in NSCLC patients at diagnosis (if tissue was unavailable/insufficient) or at PD to investigate potential druggable molecular aberrations. Blood samples were collected as routinary diagnostic procedures, DNA was extracted, and the NextSeq 550 Illumina platform was used to run the Roche Avenio ctDNA Expanded Kit for molecular analyses. Gene variants were classified accordingly to the ESCAT score. Results: A total of 106 patients were included in this study; 44 % of cases were requested because of tissue unavailability at the diagnosis and 56 % were requested at the PD. At least one driver alteration was observed in 62 % of cases at diagnosis. Driver druggable variants classified as ESCAT level I were detected in 34 % of patients, including ALK-EML4, ROS1-CD74, EGFR, BRAF, KRAS p.G12C, PI3KCA. In the PD group, most patients were EGFR-positive, progressing to a first line-therapy. Sixty-three percent of patients had at least one driver alteration detected in blood and 17 % of patients had a known biological mechanism of resistance allowing further therapeutic decisions. Conclusions: The present study confirms the potential of liquid biopsy to detect tumour molecular heterogeneity in NSCLC patients at the diagnosis and at PD, demonstrating that a significant number of druggable mutations and mechanisms of resistance can be detected by NGS analysis on ctDNA.

We introduce GeaVR, an open-source package containing tools for geological-structural exploration and mapping in Immersive Virtual Reality (VR). GeaVR also makes it possible to carry out quantitative data collection on 3D realistic, referenced and scaled Virtual Reality scenarios. Making use of Immersive Virtual Reality technology through the Unity game engine, GeaVR works with commercially available VR equipment. This allows VR to be accessible to a broad audience, resulting in a revolutionary tool package for Earth Sciences. Users can explore various 3D datasets, spanning from freely available Digital Surface Models and Bathymetric data to ad-hoc 3D high-resolution models from photogrammetry processing. The user can navigate the 3D model in first person, walking or flying above the surrounding environment, mapping the main geological features such as points, lines and polygons, and collecting quantitative data using the provided field survey tools. Such data, including geographic coordinates, can be exported for further spatial analyses. Here we describe three different case studies aimed at showing the potential of our tools. GeaVR is revolutionary as it can be used worldwide, with no spatial limitations, both for geo-education and Earth Science popularization, as well as for research purposes. Secondly, it makes it possible to safely access dangerous areas, such as vertical cliffs or volcanic terrains, virtually from a computer screen or Virtual Reality headset. Furthermore, it can help to reduce carbon emissions by avoiding the use of flights and vehicles to conduct field trips.

The cancer hazard associated with lifetime exposure to radiofrequency radiation (RFR) was examined in Sprague Dawley (SD) rats at the Ramazzini Institute (RI), Italy. There were increased incidences of gliomas and cardiac schwannomas. The translational relevance of these rare rat tumors for human disease is poorly understood. We examined the genetic alterations in RFR-derived rat tumors through molecular characterization of important cancer genes relevant for human gliomagenesis. A targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel was designed for rats based on the top 23 orthologous human glioma-related genes. Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and small insertion and deletions (indels) were characterized in the rat gliomas and cardiac schwannomas. Translational relevance of these genetic alterations in rat tumors to human disease was determined through comparison with the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) database. These data suggest that rat gliomas resulting from life-time exposure to RFR histologically resemble low grade human gliomas but surprisingly no mutations were detected in rat gliomas that had homology to the human IDH1 p.R132 or IDH2 p.R172 suggesting that rat gliomas are primarily wild-type for IDH hotspot mutations implicated in human gliomas. The rat gliomas appear to share some genetic alterations with IDH1 wildtype human gliomas and rat cardiac schwannomas also harbor mutations in some of the queried cancer genes. These data demonstrate that targeted NGS panels based on tumor specific orthologous human cancer driver genes are an important tool to examine the translational relevance of rodent tumors resulting from chronic/life-time rodent bioassays.

Protein meals from insects in combination with poultry by-product meal appear to be promising ingredients for replacing conventional proteins in the diets of carnivorous fish. The present study explored the effects on growth performance, hepatic enzymatic activity, and fillet physical and nutritional characteristics during a 66-day feeding trial performed on European seabass. A total of 3000 fish were distributed into three tanks, where the control group was fed with a commercial diet (CG) and a second group was fed in duplicate with the experimental diet (SSH) containing 10% Hermetia illucens larva meal, 30% poultry by-product meal, and

We analysed all the Holocene structures defining the Fremrinamar Fissure Swarm (FFS), in the Northern Volcanic Zone of Iceland, through the interpretation of aerial photos, orthomosaics and Digital Surface Models (DSMs), and field surveys. We measured the strike, dip, length and kinematics of 761 normal faults and reconstructed the slip profile of 76 main faults (length >2 km), with the purpose of evaluating the overall direction of along-axis rift propagation. We also measured the strike of 146 eruptive fissures and 1,128 extension fractures. A total of 421 faults dip towards the east and 340 dip towards the west, mainly striking N0°-10°E. Maximum fault length is 14.2 km, and W-dipping faults are longer than E-dipping faults. The majority of eruptive fissures strike N10°-20°E, and are concentrated in the southern part of the FFS, around the Fremrinamar central volcano. Extension fractures mainly strike N0°-10°E, with a maximum length of 2,508 m. We evaluated the variation of strike, fracture density and spacing along the FFS, and observed a change of its trend from NNE-SSW in the central-southern part, to NNW-SSE in the northern part. We interpret this evidence as the effect of the intersection with the Grimsey Lineament. The tapering of fault slip profiles indicates a main northward propagation of the rift, and thus of the deformation, interpreted as the effect of lateral propagation of dykes from the magma chamber below the central volcano towards the north. Such interpretation is also supported by the distribution of normal faults, vertical offset and dilation values, and also by the rift width, which tend to decrease towards the north.

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) adopts a hybrid quantum-classical approach to find approximate solutions to variational optimization problems. In fact, it relies on a classical subroutine to optimize the parameters of a quantum circuit. In this article, we present a Bayesian optimization procedure to fulfill this optimization task, and we investigate its performance in comparison with other global optimizers. We show that our approach allows for a significant reduction in the number of calls to the quantum circuit, which is typically the most expensive part of the QAOA. We demonstrate that our method works well also in the regime of slow circuit repetition rates and that a few measurements of the quantum ansatz would already suffice to achieve a good estimate of the energy. In addition, we study the performance of our method in the presence of noise at gate level, and we find that for low circuit depths, it is robust against noise. Our results suggest that the method proposed here is a promising framework to leverage the hybrid nature of QAOA on the noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.

Tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy is an entity characterized by reversible dysfunction of the left ventricle, which can be induced by different types of arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, incessant supraventricular tachycardia and ventricular arrhythmia (more frequent causes). Correct identification of the causative arrhythmia and normalization of the heart rate (e.g through medical treatment, electrical cardioversion, ablation) can lead to recovery of left ventricular function. Tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy should be suspected in patients with tachycardia and left ventricular dysfunction (heart failure setting), especially when there is no history of previous heart disease. Its usual phenotype is that of non-ischaemic/non-valvular dilated cardiomyopathy and it can occur in both children (main cause: permanent junctional reciprocating tachycardia) and adults (main cause: atrial fibrillation). With proper treatment, most cases recover within a few months, though there is a risk of relapse, especially when the causal arrhythmia reappears or its control is lost. This is a narrative review that comprehensively addresses the pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, and therapeutic management of tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy. This article is part of the Emerging concepts in heart failure management and treatment Special Issue: https://www.drugsincontext.com/special_issues/emerging-concepts-in-heart-failure-management-and-treatment

ObjectiveTo assess and compare the inter-rater agreement of the CDC criteria and the ASEPSIS score in identifying surgical site infections after cesarean section.MethodsProspective observational study including 110 patients subjected to a cesarean section at our institution. Surgical wounds were managed according to standard care and were photographed on the third, seventh, and thirtieth postoperative day or during any evaluation in case of complications. Three expert surgeons reviewed the prospectively gathered data and photographs and classified each wound using CDC criteria and the ASEPSIS score. The inter-rater agreements of CDC criteria and ASEPSIS score were determined with Krippendorff's Alpha with linear weights and compared with a confidence interval approach.ResultsThe weighted α coefficient for CDC criteria was 0.587 (95%CI, 0.411–0.763, p

The liver health of Gilthead sea bream and European sea bass, fed with fish meal-free diets, including various proportions of plant proteins, as well as insect and poultry by-product meals, was investigated through biochemical and histological analyses using a new liver index (LI) formula. Four isoproteic (45% Dry Matter, DM) and isolipidic (20% DM) diets were compared, including a plant-based control diet (CV) and three other test diets, in which 40% of a plant protein-rich ingredient mixture was replaced with meals from Hermetia illucens (H40) or poultry by-product (P40) alone, or in combination (H10P30). The trials lasted 12 and 18 weeks for sea bream and sea bass, respectively. The results obtained thus far highlighted species-specific differences in the physiological response to dietary changes. In sea bream, the biochemical and histological responses suggest favorable physiological and liver health statuses, with higher serum cholesterol (CHO) and triglyceride (TAG) levels, as well as moderate hepatocyte lipid accumulation, with the H10P30 diet compared to the CV (p < 0.05). In sea bass, all diets resulted in elevated serum TAG levels and lipid accumulation in the liver, particularly in fish fed the P40 one (p < 0.05), which resulted in the highest LI, coupled with a higher frequency of severe lipid accumulation, hypertrophy, cord loss, peripheral nuclei displacement, and pyknosis. In conclusion, sea bream adapted well to the test diets, whereas sea bass exhibited altered hepatic lipid metabolism leading to incipient liver steatosis, likely due to the high lipid contents of the diets, including the insect and poultry meals. The LI formula developed in this study proved to be a reliable tool for assessing the effects of dietary changes on the liver health of sea bream and sea bass, consistent with biochemical and histological findings.

Abstract Background Increasing demand for high-value fish species and pressure on forage fish is challenging aquaculture to ensure sustainable growth by replacing protein sources in aquafeeds with plant and terrestrial animal proteins, without compromising the economic value and quality of the final fish product. In the present study, the effects of a plant protein-based diet (CV), two plant-based diets in which graded amounts of plan protein mixtures were replaced with Hermetia illucens meal alone (VH10) or in combination with poultry by-product meal (PBM) (VH10P30), a fishmeal (FM) diet (CF) and an FM diet supplemented with H. illucens (FH10) on growth performance, gut health and homeostasis of farmed subadult European seabass were tested and compared. Results Fish fed the VH10 and VH10P30 diets showed the highest specific growth rates and lowest feed conversion ratios among the tested groups. Expectedly, the best preservation of PI morphology was observed in fish fed the CF or FH10 diets, while fish fed the CV diet exhibited significant degenerative changes in the proximal and distal intestines. However, PBM supplementation mitigated these effects and significantly improved all gut morphometric parameters in the VH10P30 group. Partial substitution of the plant mixture with insect meal alone or PBM also induced most BBM genes and activated BBM enzymes, suggesting a beneficial effect on intestinal digestive/absorption functions. Regarding intestinal microbiota, fish fed diets containing H. illucens meal (FH10, VH10, VH10P30) had the highest richness of bacterial communities and abundance of beneficial genera such as Lactobacillus and Bacillus. On the other hand, fish fed CV had the highest microbial diversity but lost a significant component of fish intestinal microbiota, the phylum Bacteroidetes. Finally, skin pigmentation most similar to that of farmed or even wild seabass was also observed in the fish groups fed CF, FH10 or VH10P30. Conclusion Plant-based diets supplemented with PBM and H. illucens pupae meal have great potential as alternative diets for European seabass, without affecting growth performance, gut homeostasis, or overall fitness. This also highlights the importance of animal proteins in diets of European seabass, as the addition of a small amount of these alternative animal protein sources significantly improved all measured parameters.

Apesar de situações de luto não serem raras em escolas e de impactarem o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes, sabe-se da dificuldade em abordar a educação sobre a morte nessas instituições. No intuito de contribuir para a prática de psicólogas escolares e educacionais no manejo de situações de luto, este estudo objetivou revisar o respectivo estado da arte disponível nas bases de dados PePSIC, SciELO Brasil e Catálogo de Teses e Dissertações CAPES, sem restrição de data de publicação. Procedeu-se também a uma análise textual qualitativa de estudos selecionados, por meio de uma Classificação Hierárquica Descendente no software Iramuteq. Os resultados foram categorizados em categorias de análise que indicam, por um lado, o reconhecimento da necessidade de ações de educação sobre a morte e o luto e, por outro lado, as dificuldades de implementá-las no contexto escolar. Assim, propõem-se orientações complementares e específicas para a atuação de psicólogas nesse contexto.

Trained dogs can recognize the volatile organic compounds contained in biological samples of patients with COVID-19 infection. We assessed the sensitivity and specificity of in vivo SARS-CoV-2 screening by trained dogs.We recruited five dog-handler dyads. In the operant conditioning phase, the dogs were taught to distinguish between positive and negative sweat samples collected from volunteers' underarms in polymeric tubes. The conditioning was validated by tests involving 16 positive and 48 negative samples held or worn in such a way that the samples were invisible to the dog and handler. In the screening phase the dogs were led by their handlers to a drive-through facility for in vivo screening of volunteers who had just received a nasopharyngeal swab from nursing staff. Each volunteer who had already swabbed was subsequently tested by two dogs, whose responses were recorded as positive, negative, or inconclusive. The dogs’ behavior was constantly monitored for attentiveness and wellbeing.All the dogs passed the conditioning phase, their responses showing a sensitivity of 83–100% and a specificity of 94–100%. The in vivo screening phase involved 1251 subjects, of whom 205 had a COVID-19 positive swab and two dogs per each subject to be screened. Screening sensitivity and specificity were respectively 91.6–97.6% and 96.3–100% when only one dog was involved, whereas combined screening by two dogs provided a higher sensitivity. Dog wellbeing was also analyzed: monitoring of stress and fatigue suggested that the screening activity did not adversely impact the dogs’ wellbeing. This work, by screening a large number of subjects, strengthen recent findings that trained dogs can discriminate between COVID-19 infected and healthy human subjects and introduce two novel research aspects: i) assessement of signs of fatigue and stress in dogs during training and testing, and ii) combining screening by two dogs to improve detection sensitivity and specificity.Using some precautions to reduce the risk of infection and spillover, in vivo COVID-19 screening by a dog-handler dyad can be suitable to quickly screen large numbers of people: it is rapid, non-invasive and economical, since it does not involve actual sampling, lab resources or waste management, and is suitable to screen large numbers of people.

We present a detailed simulation study on plasmonic-organic hybrid electro-optic modulators based on coupled symmetric or asymmetric plasmonic slots. An electro-optic polymer is exploited as an active material, and the device is compatible with a silicon photonics platform. The proposed device operates at 1550 nm wavelength, typical of data center or long-haul telecommunication systems. The device performance in terms of area, plasmonic losses, optical bandwidth, intrinsic modulation bandwidth and energy dissipation are comparable to already proposed Mach-Zehnder solutions, but with potentially better extinction ratio, coupling losses due to photonic-plasmonic transitions, and flexibility in exploiting, without any performance penalty, asymmetric slots to shift the ON and OFF states bias. Finally, the bias dependence of the modulation chirp is investigated, comparing through and cross-coupling configurations.

Background: Haemolymphoreticular neoplasias (HLRNs) from the Ramazzini Institute (RI) carcinogenicity studies on Aspartame (APM) in rats and mice were heterogeneously grouped over the years and different statistical methods were applied. Objective: We report all the detailed HLRN diagnoses of all the RI rats and mice studies on APM and the related statistics. Methods: Histological subtypes and lineage (myeloid or lymphoid) are reported in males (MM) and females (FF) in line with the International Harmonization of Nomenclature and Diagnostic Criteria for Lesions (INHAND) for rodents and the World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues. Statistical analyses included Fisher’s Exact test and Cochran-Armitage trend test. Findings: Results from the post-natal bioassay on Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (BT6008) showed statistically significant increases in lymphomas (all types) (MM, FF), leukemias (all types) (FF), immunoblastic lymphomas (MM, FF), total lymphoid tumours (MM, FF), monocytic leukemia (FF), myeloid leukemia (FF), histiocytic sarcoma (FF), and total myeloid tumours (FF). Results from the prenatal experiment on SD rats (BT6009), showed statistically significant increases in lymphomas (all types) (FF), leukemias (all types) (FF), total lymphoid tumours (FF), myeloid leukemia (FF), and total myeloid tumours (FF). Finally, results from the prenatal bioassay on Swiss mice (BT6010) showed statistically significant increases in leukemias (all types) (MM, FF), lymphoblastic leukemia (MM, FF), monocytic leukemia (MM) and total myeloid tumours (MM). Conclusions: Our analyses, performed in line with international recommended guidelines for statistics and pathology, confirm and reinforce our previous findings of statistically significant increases of HLRNs in rodents exposed to APM.