The impact of maternal age and body mass index on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: moving beyond the cut-off effect

Background: Maternal age (MA) and body mass index (BMI) are known risk factors for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). Different threshold values are used to calculate preeclampsia risk scores, but the appropriateness of a cut point model has not been extensively evaluated. This is because the effects of both MA and BMI occur continuously. We aimed to investigate the relationship between MA, BMI, and HDP, respecting the continuous nature of the two independent variables. Material...

Ecological survey for biological management and protection of italian vineyards in the face of climate change

Viticulture is one of the most important agronomic sectors worldwide. Nowadays, vine cultivation is dramatically affected by pests and pathogens, that impact both yields and grape quality. The intense and indiscriminate use of pesticides, mainly fungicides, led to the emergence of resistant pathogen genotypes and environmental issues, leading to the search for sustainable alternatives. Microbial biocontrol agents (mBCAs) and plant-growth promoters (PGPs) can provide a valuable alternati...

Cibo e cucina in età medievale: analisi dei residui organici nei contenitori in pietra ollare e ceramici

Nel presente lavoro sono presentati i risultati dello studio di 43 frammenti di pentole in pietra ollare e di 5 vasi ceramici provenienti dai siti altomedievali di Nogara, Leno e Piuro. Il nucleo principale del materiale studiato è costituito da 40 campioni provenienti da Nogara e datati tra IX e XI secolo. Dai reperti sono state prelevate incrostazioni di probabile origine alimentare adese alle pareti e ai fondi delle pentole, alle quali sono state applicate tecniche analitiche innovativ...

Post-operative and oncological outcomes of surgical management options for localized pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Firm-specific news sentiment and short-horizon risk-adjusted return predictability: evidence from large language models

Financial markets operate in a narrative-driven information environment in which news, disclosures, and digital communication shape how investors interpret firms’ future prospects. Although asset-pricing theory emphasizes fundamentals, prices ultimately reflect heterogeneous expectations and evaluative beliefs, commonly referred to as investor sentiment. The economic relevance of sentiment depends critically on how it is defined, measured, and aligned with the asset-pricing unit of analysis. ...

Clinical response to futibatinib in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma with acquired resistance to non-covalent Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 2 inhibitors

Background Fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) fusions occur in approximately 4–8% of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA). Non-covalent FGFR inhibitors demon-strate clinical activity, but resistance frequently develops through secondary FGFR2 kinase-domain mutations. Futibatinib is a covalent inhibitor that may overcome sev-eral of these mutations. The optimal choice between non-covalent and covalent in-hibitors, as well as their potential sequential use, remains unresolved. We ev...

Validation of an Innovative Touchscreen System to Assess Neurocognitive Functions in Rodents

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration, against which there exist currently only symptomatic therapies. Plant secondary metabolites with neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant efficacies have attracted much research in recent years as future cognitive promoters. It is not yet certain, however, that there is a direct relationship between such activity and cognitive enhancement in healthy subjects. It ...

Exome cnv calling and constellation mapped read for clinical structural variant analysis

Despite the widespread use of whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS) in rare disease diagnostics, many patients remain without a molecular diagnosis. Routine pipelines are highly optimized for calling single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and small insertions or deletions (indels), whereas copy number variants (CNV) and other structural rearrangements (SV) are often handled by separate assays or only investigated in selected cases. This thesis asks how far short read...

Fragment size profiling and sequencer quality evaluation in clinical ngs