The ERSA Prize in Regional Science 2017 has been awarded to Professor Roberta Capello, full Professor of Regional Economics at Politecnico di Milano, School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Construction Engineering, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering.

This € 5.000 price awards Professor Roberta Capello’s scientific achievements in urban and regional economics, in particular her work on spatial spillovers and externalities from innovations, knowledge creation and the impacts on urban and regional growth. As an author, Professor Roberta Capello has made a tremendous impact in the field of regional science with her textbook in regional economics, Routledge (2007), and her several books and papers published in refereed journals. The jury acknowledges her outstanding and prolific contributions to the advancement of regional science.

For an entire week, the Spanish and British kindergarten were able to be flies on the wall at Sandvedhaugen kindergarten in Norway. They shadowed their Norwegian colleagues to see how they work, how Norwegian kindergartens operate and to pick up good practices they might bring with them back home and apply in their own kindergartens.

Testing manuals
The secondments were part of the EU project “Enhancing Opportunities for Toddlers’ Wellbeing” (ToWe). The aim is to let more kindergarten employees carry out secondments or “job shadowing” with partner kindergartens from other countries. ToWe is an action research project where the overall objective is to improve the quality of life for toddlers, with a focus on disadvantaged children, to ensure they are given a good start in life and to fulfil their learning potential. The kindergarten teachers who are involved in the project will be able to gain new knowledge. Early childhood education departments from the University of Stavanger, Kingston University in London and Universitat Ramon Lull in Barcelona have together developed a number manuals that kindergarten employees may use to learn more about the wellbeing of children during meals, how they can work with children’s ways of expressing themselves and how they can contribute to language learning for toddlers. The material that has been developed, currently being tested in the partner kindergartens, is available on the ToWe project website. 

Many funny moments
During the job shadowing, the English, Spanish and Norwegian kindergarten teachers participating in the project had some revelations, and there were many moments of insight – including some funny ones. “For me the amount of time spent outdoors in Norwegian kindergartens came as a big surprise. It was also strange to see children sleeping outside in their prams. And I must admit that I was somewhat shocked when one of the kindergarten employees said that everyone had to go out and play in the rain. My response was simply: What? Are we going out now? Isn’t it raining? I was afraid the children would get cold, but that was only until I saw the suits and rain clothing Norwegian children wear. This is not common in Spain”, says Mireia Miralpeix, who works in the kindergarten Escola Bressol Mas Balmanya outside of Barcelona.

The average Swiss rubbish bag still contains roughly one third of fermentable biomass. Photo: Vanessa Burg (WSL)

 Biomass has great potential in Switzerland for future heat and electricity generation and fuel production. This potential is far from being exhausted. Energy derived from wood, farm manure and waste can be stored and whenever there is no wind or sunshine. For the first time, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have completed a comprehensive assessment of the potential of biomass energy in Switzerland. By deciding to go forward with the energy transition, Switzerland is planning to lower the quantity of electricity generated from nuclear and fossil fuels and compensate it by using renewable sources such as biomass. Wood is the most extensively available type of biomass in Switzerland, whereby most timber of better quality is used in construction and in interior design. Some wood is also exploited for energy, especially for generating heat. However, non-woody biomass, such as farmyard manure, organic waste, sewage sludge and by-products of agricultural crops also contain valuable energy.

Tissue sections of the duodenum: cells which can release satiety hormones are marked in green. For obese patients (middle), the number of these cells is markedly lower than for lean people (top) and for overweight patients three months after surgery (bottom).

Individuals with severe overweight have an inhibited sense of satiation - they release fewer satiety hormones than people of normal weight. The reason: the responsible cells in the gastrointestinal tract of obese people are severely reduced. This report Swiss doctors in the journal Scientific Reports. Surgical weight-loss procedures can repair this disorder. The mucous membrane of the upper gastrointestinal tract is home to highly specified cells, the so-called enteroendocrine cells, that constantly analyze our intestinal contents. During a meal, they release satiety hormones into the bloodstream. This signalizes to the body that enough food has been taken in and that the meal can be ended. The sense of satiation is created in the central nervous system.

• Children living with asthma are more likely to be overweight than their pee
• Research will examine impact of asthma on children’s eating, exercise and weight

Researchers at Aston University and clinicians at Birmingham Children’s Hospital are exploring how children living with asthma can be supported to maintain a healthy weight. Children and teenagers with the chronic condition are much more likely to be overweight than their counterparts, and if they are clinically obese their risk of having severe asthma is three times higher.  Now a £70,000 jointly funded project is seeing Dr Claire Farrow, Dr Gemma Heath and Professor Helen Pattison from the university working with the hospital’s respiratory team to investigate the complex relationship between weight and asthma in children – and potentially help young patients better manage their symptoms and improve their health. “Asthma is one of the most common chronic illnesses in children, with no current therapeutic cure,” said Dr Farrow. “Children who live with asthma are much more likely to be overweight or obese than other children, and if they are obese, their risk of having severe asthma is three times higher.” 

The emotional facial expression of others influences how positive or negative we perceive an odour. The basis of this effect seems to be the activity of a brain area that is relevant for smelling and is activated even before we perceive an odour. This is what neuropsychologists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum found out. They published their findings in the Journal Scientific Reports. “When we see someone that makes a face, because a bad smell stings his nose, the same odour appears to be unpleasant for us as well,” says Dr Patrick Schulze, one of the authors.

The same scent smells always different

The research team around Dr Patrick Schulze, Dr Anne-Kathrin Bestgen and Prof Dr Boris Suchan investigated via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) how the brain processes the combination of emotional information and odours. They had their participants look at a picture of a person with a happy, neutral or disgusted facial expression. Afterwards they had them rate one of twelve scents. The picture of the facial expression affected the way the odours were perceived. The participants rated the valence of a scent higher, when they saw a happy face first and they rated the valence as poorer when they saw a disgusted face before. That applied to aromas like caramel and lemon, as well as to the smell of sweat or garlic. Only the smell of feces could not be up valued by a positive facial expression.

Lo studio, condotto da un team di ricercatori di Nanotec-Cnr e dell'Università Sapienza di Roma, è stato pubblicato sulla rivista Nature Communication

Molti batteri, come Escherichia coli, sono fantastici ‘nuotatori’, capaci di percorrere più di dieci volte la loro lunghezza in un secondo: approssimativamente, in proporzione, la stessa velocità di un ghepardo. Per muoversi, usano il ‘motore flagellare’, ruotando sottili filamenti elicoidali, i flagelli, a più di cento giri al secondo. Il motore flagellare è una sorta di motore ‘elettrico’, alimentato da un flusso di cariche che la cellula accumula costantemente nello spazio periplasmatico che ne circonda la membrana interna e il meccanismo con il quale i batteri ‘ricaricano le batterie’ prende il nome di respirazione e di solito richiede l'ossigeno. Nel 2000 è stata scoperta mediante la sequenziazione genetica di batteri in campioni di plancton una nuova proteina, la proteorodopsina, che si inserisce nella membrana cellulare, dove utilizza energia proveniente dalla luce per accumulare carica nella ‘batteria’ anche in assenza di ossigeno. Un team di ricercatori dell’Istituto di nanotecnologia del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Nanotec-Cnr) e del dipartimento di Fisica dell'Università Sapienza di Roma, grazie a uno studio pubblicato su Nature Communication, ha dimostrato che alcuni batteri geneticamente modificati e in grado di produrre proteorodopsina possono essere utilizzati come minuscoli propulsori in micromacchine invisibili all'occhio umano, la cui velocità di rotazione può essere finemente regolata con luce verde di intensità controllabile.

One of the OMM dogs showed obvious tumor regression after 10 weeks of antibody administration. Photographs (a) and (d) were taken before the administration, (b) and (e) after 10 weeks of administration, and (c) and (f) after 34 weeks of administration. The antibody dosage was increased from week 24. (Maekawa N. et al., Scientific Reports, August 21, 2017)

Scientists have developed a new chimeric antibody that suppresses malignant cancers in dogs, showing promise for safe and effective treatment of intractable cancers.

Similar to our aging society, dogs live longer than before and an increasing number of them die from cancer nowadays. As seen in humans, dogs have malignant cancers that cannot be treated by existing therapies such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Oral malignant melanoma (OMM), a highly invasive cancer in dogs, is one such example. In humans, some malignant cancer cells express PD-L1 proteins that bind to their receptor PD-1 on T cells, resulting in the suppression of the T cell’s immune function. Thus, PD-L1/PD-1 interaction is considered an “immune escape mechanism” that cancer cells have. Antibodies that block PD-1/PD-L1 binding have proven effective in inducing anti-tumor immune responses and have been widely used in immunotherapy in the last five years. However, in dogs, no such clinical studies have been reported so far.