Constitutional principles and ethno-regional parties

Introduction: This paper surveys the norms and procedures adopted in a number of European countries to facilitate representation and participation of ethnic minorities in the political process. The emergence of regional parties is the result of a process of mobilization of new constituencies in places in which local ethnic realities possessed little political weight or national influence. Ad hoc political parties were created to redress a strong majoritarian bias and allow minorities into the political process

A Scoring Matrix Method for Integrated Evaluation of Water-Related Ecosystem Services Provided by Urban Parks

Increasing urbanization, landscape conversion, and resource consumption represent the most important, visible and irreversible human-induced actions on Earth. As a consequence, nowadays it is of seminal importance to understand and assess how anthropic pressures are related to the provision of ecosystem services (ES). This paper focuses on urban parks and their provision of water-induced ecosystem services (WES) connected to urban hydrologic cycle. The study uses a broad holistic approach to comprehensively understand the links between anthropic pressures and WES production. With the help of biological, chemical, and physical indicators collected in publicly available databases a scoring matrix was created. The method was applied to two different parks in Turin (Italy), the Arrivore Park and the Michelotti Park. The matrices reveal that anthropic pressures are marked, and the most affected WES are habitat maintenance, recreational services, and the provision of drinkable and non-drinkable water. The hydromorphological alterations are the anthropogenic pressures most strongly present in both parks. More specifically, in the Arrivore Park urbanization represents one of the most important pressures while the main pressures in the Michelotti Park are water abstraction for industrial and agricultural use and point source pollution. This study makes a major contribution to research on WES assessment by demonstrating the possibility to understand and to assess the impact of anthropic pressures. Moreover, the proposed matrix method provides an easy tool to support policymakers, public administrations, and private companies within sustainable urban planning

GESTÃO POR COMPETÊNCIAS, GESTÃO DO CONHECIMENTO E EDUCAÇÃO CORPORATIVA: UM ESTUDO SOBRE EMPRESAS BRASILEIRAS

Competence is responsible and recognized act of knowing, that involves mobilizing, integrating, transferring knowledge, resources, skills, that adds economic value to the organization and social value to the individual. Knowledge management is the systematic and deliberated coordination of people, technologies, processes and organizational structure of the company with the purpose of adding value through use, reuse and innovation. The relationship between the two practices increases the organization's competitiveness potential. In order to understand this relationship, this research analyzed data on the practices related to knowledge management and corporative education and management by competences of Brazilian organizations through the database of the survey ‘As Melhores Empresas para Você Trabalhar’ - using an approach quantitative. The data analysis  allows us to infer a positive relationship between the practices that can demonstrate a human resources area more active next to the business strategy and seeking to raise the competitiveness of the organization.Competência é o ato de conhecer responsável e reconhecido, que envolve mobilizar, integrar, transferir conhecimentos, recursos, habilidades, que agreguem valor econômico à organização e valor social ao indivíduo. A gestão do conhecimento é a coordenação sistemática e deliberada de pessoas, tecnologias, processos e estrutura organizacional da empresa com o objetivo de agregar valor por meio do uso, reaproveitamento e inovação. A relação entre as duas práticas aumenta o potencial de competitividade da organização. Para compreender essa relação, esta pesquisa analisou dados sobre as práticas relacionadas à gestão do conhecimento e à educação corporativa e à gestão por competências de organizações brasileiras por meio do banco de dados da pesquisa ‘Melhores Empresas para Trabalhar’ - com abordagem quantitativa. A análise dos dados permite inferir uma relação positiva entre as práticas que podem demonstrar uma área de recursos humanos mais atuante junto à estratégia de negócios e buscando elevar a competitividade da organização. 

Absence of protein A expression is associated with higher capsule production in staphylococcal isolates

Staphylococcus aureus is a major human pathogen, and a leading cause of soft tissue and blood stream infections. One of the causes of its success as a pathogen is the peculiar array of immune evasion factors through which the bacterium avoids host defenses, where the staphylococcal protein A (SpA) plays a major role thanks to its IgG binding activities. Moreover, SpA has recently been proposed as a promising vaccine antigen. In this study, we evaluated the expression of SpA in a collection of staphylococcal strains, about 7% of which did not express SpA (SpA- strains), despite the presence of the gene. By a comparative genomic analysis, we identified that a mutation in the spa 5′ UTR sequence affecting the RBS is responsible for the loss of SpA in a subset of SpA- strains. Using a high-throughput qRT-PCR approach on a selected panel of virulence-related genes, we identified that the SpA- phenotype is associated with lower spa transcript levels and increased expression and production of capsule as well as other changes in the transcription of several key virulence factors. Our data suggest that the SpA- phenotype has occurred in geographically distinct strains through different molecular mechanisms including both mutation, leading likely to translation alterations, and transcriptional deregulation. Furthermore, we provide evidence that SpA- strains are highly susceptible to phagocytic uptake mediated by anti-capsule antibodies. These data suggest that S. aureus may alter its virulence factor expression pattern as an adaptation to the host or environment. Vaccination strategies targeting both SpA and capsule could therefore result in broader coverage against staphylococcal isolates than SpA alone

Specific Involvement of Pilus Type 2a in Biofilm Formation in Group B Streptococcus

Streptococcus agalactiae is the primary colonizer of the anogenital mucosa of up to 30% of healthy women and can infect newborns during delivery and cause severe sepsis and meningitis. Persistent colonization usually involves the formation of biofilm and increasing evidences indicate that in pathogenic streptococci biofilm formation is mediated by pili. Recently, we have characterized pili distribution and conservation in 289 GBS clinical isolates and we have shown that GBS has three pilus types, 1, 2a and 2b encoded by three corresponding pilus islands, and that each strain carries one or two islands. Here we have investigated the capacity of these strains to form biofilms. We have found that most of the biofilm-formers carry pilus 2a, and using insertion and deletion mutants we have confirmed that pilus type 2a, but not pilus types 1 and 2b, confers biofilm-forming phenotype. We also show that deletion of the major ancillary protein of type 2a did not impair biofilm formation while the inactivation of the other ancillary protein and of the backbone protein completely abolished this phenotype. Furthermore, antibodies raised against pilus components inhibited bacterial adherence to solid surfaces, offering new strategies to prevent GBS infection by targeting bacteria during their initial attachment to host epithelial cells

Virtual Reality Combined With Psychoeducation to Improve Emotional Well‐Being in Informal Caregivers of Alzheimer's Disease Patients: Rationale and Study Design of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Objectives: Care for community-dwelling people with dementia is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers with no practical management knowledge. This situation exposes caregivers to increased risk for emotional wellbeing. The current study aims to test whether the integration of the efficacy of an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience into an online psychoeducational program impacts caregiver empathy and therefore emotional wellbeing. Methods: One-hundred informal caregivers of mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients will be enrolled and randomly assigned to (i) an online psychoeducational program (control arm); or (ii) an online psychoeducational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR will consist of 360-degree videos involving the caregivers to an immersive experience of dementia symptoms from the patient's perspective. Before, after the intervention and after 2 months, all participants will complete validated clinical scales for caregiver burden and anxiety (primary outcomes) and sense of competence and dispositional empathy (secondary outcomes). A subsample of 50 participants will also undergo MRI exam, including structural and functional (resting-state and task-functional MRI [fMRI]) sequences. The fMRI task paradigm will use emotional stimuli to evaluate the neural correlate of empathy, by stressing its cognitive and affective components. The main outcome will be the change in the clinical assessment; the secondary outcome will be the change in brain connectivity of networks subserving the empathic and emotional functioning. Results: We expect that the psychoeducational program will decrease anxiety and stress, enabling caregivers to perceive themselves capable of managing AD patients at home, educating them on symptom handling and boosting their cognitive empathy. In the experimental intervention, the VR-based experience will act as an add-on to psychoeducation, leading to greater improvement in the assessed clinical dimensions. VR should, in fact, enable a deeper understanding of disease symptoms and improve caregivers' cognitive empathy. We expect that the experimental intervention will result in deeper comprehension of disease symptoms and further strengthen caregivers' cognitive empathy. At the neural level, we expect to observe increased activation in circuits subserving cognitive empathy and decreased activation in circuits underlying affective empathy. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the effect of combining psychoeducational interventions with VR-based experience in caregivers, and assessing both clinical and imaging outcomes. Trial Registration: Registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05780476)

Identification of the Autochaperone Domain in the Type Va Secretion System (T5aSS):Prevalent Feature of Autotransporters with a β-Helical Passenger

Autotransporters (ATs) belong to a family of modular proteins secreted by the Type V, subtype a, secretion system (T5aSS) and considered as an important source of virulence factors in lipopolysaccharidic diderm bacteria (archetypical Gram-negative bacteria). While exported by the Sec pathway, the ATs are further secreted across the outer membrane via their own C-terminal translocator forming a β-barrel, through which the rest of the protein, namely the passenger, can pass. In several ATs, an autochaperone domain (AC) present at the C-terminal region of the passenger and upstream of the translocator was demonstrated as strictly required for proper secretion and folding. However, considering it was functionally characterised and identified only in a handful of ATs, wariness recently fells on the commonality and conservation of this structural element in the T5aSS. To circumvent the issue of sequence divergence and taking advantage of the resolved three-dimensional structure of some ACs, identification of this domain was performed following structural alignment among all AT passengers experimentally resolved by crystallography before searching in a dataset of 1523 ATs. While demonstrating that the AC is indeed a conserved structure found in numerous ATs, phylogenetic analysis further revealed a distribution into deeply rooted branches, from which emerge 20 main clusters. Sequence analysis revealed that an AC could be identified in the large majority of SAATs (self-associating ATs) but not in any LEATs (lipase/esterase ATs) nor in some PATs (protease autotransporters) and PHATs (phosphatase/hydrolase ATs). Structural analysis indicated that an AC was present in passengers exhibiting single-stranded right-handed parallel β-helix, whatever the type of β-solenoid, but not with α-helical globular fold. From this investigation, the AC of type 1 appears as a prevalent and conserved structural element exclusively associated to β-helical AT passenger and should promote further studies about the protein secretion and folding via the T5aSS, especially toward α-helical AT passengers

Enhancing a multi-purpose artificial urine for culture and gene expression studies of uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains

Aims: The main objective of this study was to modify a recently reported multi-purpose artificial urine (MP-AU) for culture and gene expression studies of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) strains. Methods and results: We used liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify and adjust the metabolic profile of MP-AU closer to that of pooled human urine (PHU). Modification in this way facilitated growth of UPEC strains with growth rates similar to those obtained in PHU. Transcriptomic analysis of UPEC strains cultured in enhanced artificial urine (enhanced AU) and PHU showed that the gene expression profiles are similar, with less than 7% of genes differentially expressed between the two conditions. Conclusions: Enhancing an MP-AU with metabolites identified in PHU allows the enhanced AU to be used as a substitute for the culture and in vitro gene expression studies of UPEC strains

A relação entre o nível de Empreendedorismo (TEG) e os aspectos sociodemográficos dos Taxistas cooperados da cidade de Santo André/São Paulo, Brasil

O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar o nível de empreendedorismo em 147 taxistas de Santo André/SP, bem como averiguá-lo em associação aos aspectos sociodemográficos. Utilizou-se a metodologia quantitativa e para avaliar o grau de empreendedorismo elegeu-se o instrumento TEG (Tendência Empreendedora Geral) de Caird (1991). Os resultados indicaram uma população majoritariamente masculina (89%), casada (58,5%) e com o ensino médio (colegial) concluído (57,8%). Quanto ao grau de empreendedorismo, em nenhum dos constructos analisados os taxistas obtiveram a média para serem classificados empreendedores. Revelou-se que a escolaridade possui efeito significativo à TEG (F (3,147) = 3,747, p .05): quanto mais anos de estudo, tanto maior é o nível da TEG. Em outra direção, o tempo de empresa (F (30, 147) = 30,274, p.05).

Genomic analysis reveals the molecular basis for capsule loss in the group B Streptococcus population

The human and bovine bacterial pathogen Streptococcus agalactiae (Group B Streptococcus, GBS) expresses a thick polysaccharide capsule that constitutes a major virulence factor and vaccine target. GBS can be classified into ten distinct serotypes differing in the chemical composition of their capsular polysaccharide. However, non-typeable strains that do not react with anti-capsular sera are frequently isolated from colonized and infected humans and cattle. To gain a comprehensive insight into the molecular basis for the loss of capsule expression in GBS, a collection of well-characterized non-typeable strains was investigated by genome sequencing. Genome based phylogenetic analysis extended to a wide population of sequenced strains confirmed the recently observed high clonality among GBS lineages mainly containing human strains, and revealed a much higher degree of diversity in the bovine population. Remarkably, non-typeable strains were equally distributed in all lineages. A number of distinct mutations in the cps operon were identified that were apparently responsible for inactivation of capsule synthesis. The most frequent genetic alterations were point mutations leading to stop codons in the cps genes, and the main target was found to be cpsE encoding the portal glycosyl trasferase of capsule biosynthesis. Complementation of strains carrying missense mutations in cpsE with a wild-type gene restored capsule expression allowing the identification of amino acid residues essential for enzyme activity