Human papillomavirus types 16 and 18 cause the majority of cervical cancers worldwide. Despite the availability of three prophylactic vaccines based on virus-like particles (VLP) of the major capsid protein (L1), these vaccines are unable to clear an existing infection. Such infected persons experience an increased risk of neoplastic transformation. To overcome this problem, this study proposes an alternative synthetic long peptide (SLP)-based vaccine for persons already infected, including those with precancerous lesions. This new vaccine was designed to stimulate both CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, providing a robust and long-lasting immune response. The SLP construct includes both HLA class I- and class II-restricted epitopes, identified from IEDB or predicted using NetMHCPan and NetMHCIIPan. None of the SLPs were allergenic nor toxic, based on in silico studies. Population coverage studies provided 98.18% coverage for class I epitopes and 99.81% coverage for class II peptides in the IEDB world population’s allele set. Three-dimensional structure ab initio prediction using Rosetta provided good quality models, which were assessed using PROCHECK and QMEAN4. Molecular docking with toll-like receptor 2 identified potential intrinsic TLR2 agonist activity, while molecular dynamics studies of SLPs in water suggested good stability, with favorable thermodynamic properties.

Background: COVID-19 was an infection that was capable of bringing the entire world to a standstill position within a period of days to months. Despite the advancements in the medical sector, the contagion was difficult to control and costed the lives of millions of people worldwide. Many short- and long-term effects are witnessed even to date in people that contracted the disease. Pregnant females had to suffer not only the devastating effects of the virus, but also the psycho-social impact of the lockdown. The impact of COVID-19 infection during pregnancy causing decreased antenatal care or hypoxemic episodes due to severe respiratory distress and whether it could lead to the appearance of congenital gastrointestinal malformation in neonates is still unclear. The aim of our study was to analyze if COVID-19 infection during pregnancy could increase the incidence of gastric malformations in neonates born from these women. Materials and Methods: We sifted the files of all neonates admitted into our hospital between January 2022 and December 2022, and based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, we included the cases having gastrointestinal congenital malformations during the COVID-19 pandemic. We performed a single-center, retrospective, observational descriptive study. We further divided the patients based on the anatomical location of the malformation. We also took down details of the evolution of pregnancy and whether the mother had contracted a SARS-CoV-2 infection during the pregnancy. Details regarding the Apgar score, days of intensive care admission, sex, and nutrition were the key findings studied. Results: A total of 47 neonates were found to have digestive anomalies, among which, based on the anatomical locations, the number of malformation cases found at the level of the esophagus were 15, while 16 occurred at the level of the pylorus; we found 12 cases of malformation of the duodenum, and four cases had malformation of the rectum. Out of these 47 neonates, 38.3% were females and 61.7% were males. A total of 58% were preemies, among which 9% had intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR), and 42% were full-term newborns, among which 4% had intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR). A total of 45% of the births were primiparous pregnancies and 55% were from multiparous females. A total of 14 mothers were found to have tested positive for COVID-19 during the course of pregnancy (p-value = 0.23); many had mild symptoms but were not tested. Conclusions: COVID-19 can affect the wellbeing of the pregnant female and their fetus. Larger studies can help gain extensive knowledge as to whether COVID-19 also has the potential to result in congenital gastrointestinal anomalies in children born from COVID-19 positive mothers. In our study, only a few infants born with this pathology were found to be born from COVID-19 positive mothers. Hence, it is difficult to conclude or exclude a direct correlation between the infection and the congenital malformations.

(2017). European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) European Journal of General Practice: Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 227-240.

Background and Objectives: Digital tools are now embedded in anesthesia and intensive care, but access to them, and in particular to digital educational resources, is distributed unevenly across professional groups. This study describes how nurses, residents, and specialist physicians in one department appraise the contribution of digital technologies to continuing education, patient safety, and clinical and managerial decision-making, and how they report using the digital educational resources available to them. The study is descriptive and exploratory. It does not evaluate an educational intervention and does not measure learning. Methods: We conducted an anonymous, paper-based cross-sectional survey of all 198 clinical staff of a tertiary anesthesia and intensive care department between 2 June and 31 July 2025; 161 questionnaires were analyzable (81.3%). The instrument was investigator-developed and has not been validated, and it is therefore treated as a set of individual items rather than as a scale. Four trichotomous items (Yes/No/Cannot appraise) covering continuing education, patient safety, clinical decision-making, and managerial decision-making were designated primary outcomes and are reported as proportions with Wilson 95% confidence intervals, together with between-group differences and their confidence intervals; overall comparisons used the chi-square or Fisher exact test with Cramér’s V as the effect size. Reporting follows STROBE and the CROSS checklist for survey research. Composite indices, regression models, and correlation analyses were devised after data inspection, are labelled exploratory, and are not reported in this manuscript. Results: Daily use of at least one digital tool was reported by 98.1% of respondents. An educational contribution was affirmed by 56.4% of nurses (95% CI 43.3–68.6), 91.9% of residents (82.5–96.5), and 93.2% of specialists (81.8–97.7); the difference was 35.5 percentage points between residents and nurses (95% CI 20.1–49.4) and 36.8 points between specialists and nurses (20.1–50.7). Response distributions differed by professional category on all four items (p < 0.001 for education, patient safety, and clinical decisions; p = 0.005 for managerial decisions; Cramér’s V 0.22–0.31). Explicit disagreement was very rare (1 to 4 respondents per item), so the differences consist almost entirely of the “Cannot appraise” category, which is reported descriptively because the reason for that response was not measured. Reported use of digital educational resources followed the same ordering: e-learning 50.9% of nurses, 98.4% of residents, 93.2% of specialists; simulators 18.2%, 72.6%, 50.0%; webinars 65.5%, 67.7%, 86.4%. These proportions correspond to documented differences in institutional access, since simulation rotations were mandatory for residents only and the e-learning platform was opened to physicians in 2021 but to nursing staff only in October 2023. Conclusions: In this single department, response distributions on all four appraisal items differed by professional category, and reported use of digital educational resources was lowest in the group with the latest and most restricted institutional access. Because the groups used different technologies under different access conditions, these differences cannot be attributed to professional role itself, and because no learning outcome was measured they are not evidence of educational benefit. The findings are exploratory and support the hypothesis that equalizing access to digital educational resources deserves prospective evaluation.

We develop an operator algebraic framework for generalized Cardano polynomials and show how their structure naturally leads to an operator formulation of Cardano method that is compatible with tools and concepts from quantum information theory. The generalized Cardano polynomials are constructed as a generalization of classical theory of Cardano formula for cubic equation, as well as through the spectral properties of the circular operator, that embeds Cardano type identities into their spectral theory. The construction clarifies the algebraic structure and solvability of a family of two parameters odd order polynomials, classically and through operator methods familiar in QIT, including Fourier transforms and spectral calculus on operator algebras. As applications, we show connections to Cebyshev polynomials and the solution of the quartic order Ferrari equation.