Giulia Ricciardi

University of Florence | UNIFI

AMBROSIA aims to develop an innovative food product to prevent undernutrition in heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation (AF) older patients: a new chocolate AMBROSIA bar containing a specific mix of probiotic strains and a cocktail of micro/macronutrients (fibers, protein hydrolysates, coenzyme Q10); further studies on the metabolism and absorp...

Aims Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia among the elderly. It is characterized by a disordered electrical activity of the atria and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The pathogenesis of AF is not completely understood as it depends on a multifactorial combination of electrical and structural remodelling and i...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) associates with disability and frailty. Aim of this study was to evaluate in older AF patients, using artificial intelligence (AI), the relations between geriatric tools and daily standing and resting periods. We enrolled thirty-one > 65 years patients undergoing electrical cardioversion of AF (age: 79 ± 6 years; women: 41....

Snake envenoming is a globally neglected public health problem. Antivenoms produced using animal hyperimmune plasma remain the standard therapy for snakebites. Although effective against systemic effects, conventional antivenoms have limited efficacy against local tissue damage. In addition, potential hypersensitivity reactions, high costs for anim...

Biological invasions are widely regarded as the second major cause of the current global biodiversity crisis. Freshwater environments in particular include many habitats and species of conservation concern. Among those, amphibians are threatened worldwide by habitat loss and by the introduction of alien taxa, including pathogens and fish. The North...

The spread of non-native invasive species is among the factors thought to be responsible for the recent global declines in amphibian populations. In a Protected Natural Area of Local Interest in Tuscany, Italy, we tested approaches for preserving the local amphibian populations threatened by the presence of the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarki...

Social insects have evolved sophisticated recognition systems enabling them to accept nest-mates but reject alien conspecifics. In the social wasp, Liostenogaster flavolineata (Stenogastrinae), individuals differ in their cuticular hydrocarbon profiles according to colony membership; each female also possesses a unique (visual) facial pattern. This...

Conventional signals are maintained via social costs and commonly used in the animal kingdom to assess conspecifics' agonistic ability during disputes over resources. In the last decade, some experimental studies reported the existence of visual conventional signals in several social wasp species, being good rank predictors in different social cont...

Observations of birds feeding chicks or fledglings of a different species have already been reported in many publications. However, the benefits of the altruistic behaviour are not easy to understand, as benefits and costs of this behaviour have been poorly identified. In May 2013, in a wetland in Central Italy (Piana Fiorentina, Tuscany), some cas...