In 2012, the World Health Organization adopted a resolution on maternal, infant and young child nutrition that included a global target to reduce by 40% the number of stunted under-five children by 2025. The target was based on analyses of time series data from 148 countries and national success stories in tackling undernutrition. The global target translates to a 3.9% reduction per year and implies decreasing the number of stunted children from 171 million in 2010 to about 100 million in 2025. However, at current rates of progress, there will be 127 million stunted children by 2025, that is, 27 million more than the target or a reduction of only 26%. The translation of the global target into national targets needs to consider nutrition profiles, risk factor trends, demographic changes, experience with developing and implementing nutrition policies, and health system development. This paper presents a methodology to set individual country targets, without precluding the use of others. Any method applied will be influenced by country-specific population growth rates. A key question is what countries should do to meet the target. Nutrition interventions alone are almost certainly insufficient, hence the importance of ongoing efforts to foster nutrition-sensitive development and encourage development of evidence-based, multisectoral plans to address stunting at national scale, combining direct nutrition interventions with strategies concerning health, family planning, water and sanitation, and other factors that affect the risk of stunting. In addition, an accountability framework needs to be developed and surveillance systems strengthened to monitor the achievement of commitments and targets.

Senescent cells accumulate in human tissues during ageing and contribute to age-related pathologies. The mechanisms responsible for their accumulation are unclear. Here we show that senescent dermal fibroblasts express the non-classical MHC molecule HLA-E, which interacts with the inhibitory receptor NKG2A expressed by NK and highly differentiated CD8⁺ T cells to inhibit immune responses against senescent cells. HLA-E expression is induced by senescence-associated secretary phenotype-related pro-inflammatory cytokines, and is regulated by p38 MAP kinase signalling in vitro. Consistently, HLA-E expression is increased on senescent cells in human skin sections from old individuals, when compared with those from young, and in human melanocytic nevi relative to normal skin. Lastly, blocking the interaction between HLA-E and NKG2A boosts immune responses against senescent cells in vitro. We thus propose that increased HLA-E expression contributes to persistence of senescent cells in tissues, thereby suggesting a new strategy for eliminating senescent cells during ageing.

© Copyright owned by the author(s). CUORE is a ton-scale experiment approaching the data taking phase in Gran Sasso National Laboratory. Its primary goal is to search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay in130Te using 988 crystals of tellurim dioxide. The crystals are operated as bolometers at about 10 mK taking advantage of one of the largest dilution cryostat ever built. Concluded in March 2016, the cryostat commissioning consisted in a sequence of cool down runs each one integrating new parts of the apparatus. The last run was performed with the fully configured cryostat and the thermal load at 4 K reached the impressive mass of about 14 tons. During that run the base temperature of 6.3 mK was reached and maintained for more than 70 days. An array of 8 crystals, called mini-tower, was used to check bolometers operation, readout electronics and DAQ. Results will be presented in terms of cooling power, electronic noise, energy resolution and preliminary background measurements.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first bolometric experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta decay that has been able to reach the 1-ton scale. The detector consists of an array of 988 TeO2 crystals arranged in a cylindrical compact structure of 19 towers. The construction of the experiment and, in particular, the installation of all towers in the cryostat was completed in August 2016 and commissioning started in fall 2016. The experiment has completed the pre-operation phase and is currently in data taking. We present here the achievements of CUORE during the commissioning phase and the limit on the 130Te half-life for the neutrinoless double beta decay that has been released after the first 3 weeks of collected data. Physics results from CUORE-0 will also be updated.

CUORE is a cryogenic detector that will be operated at LNGS to search for neutrinoless double beta decay (0ββ) of 130Te. The detector installation was completed in summer 2016. Before the installation, several cold runs were done to test the cryogenic system performance. In the last cold run the base temperature of 6.3mK was reached in stable condition. CUORE-0, a CUORE prototype, has proven the feasibility of CUORE, demonstrating that the target background of 0.01 counts/keV/kg/y and the energy resolution of 5 keV are within reach.

We report a study of the CUORE sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta (0) decay. We used a Bayesian analysis based on a toy Monte Carlo (MC) approach to extract the exclusion sensitivity to the 0 decay half-life (T1/20ν) at 90 % credibility interval (CI) – i.e. the interval containing the true value of T1/20ν with 90 % probability – and the 3σ discovery sensitivity. We consider various background levels and energy resolutions, and describe the influence of the data division in subsets with different background levels. If the background level and the energy resolution meet the expectation, CUORE will reach a 90 % CI exclusion sensitivity of 2 · 10 25 year with 3 months, and 9 · 10 25 year with 5 years of live time. Under the same conditions, the discovery sensitivity after 3 months and 5 years will be 7 · 10 24 year and 4 · 10 25 year, respectively.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is a ton-scale double beta decay experiment based on TeO2 cryogenic bolometers and is currently in the last construction stage at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS). Its primary goal is to observe neutrino-less double beta decay of 130Te, however thanks to the ultra-low background and large projected exposure it could also be suitable for other rare event searches, as the detection of solar axions, neutrinos from type II supernovae or direct detection of dark matter. The sensitivity for these searches will depend on the performance achieved at the low energy threshold. For this reason a trigger algorithm based on continuous data filtering has been developed which will allow lowering the threshold down to the few keV region. The new trigger has been tested in CUORE-0, a single-tower CUORE prototype consisting of 52 TeO2 bolometers and recently concluded, and here we present the results in terms of trigger efficiency, data selection and low-energy calibration.

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is the first cryogenic experiment searching for 0 νββ decay that has been able to reach the one-tonne mass scale. The detector, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, consists of an array of 988 TeO 2 crystals arranged in a compact cylindrical structure of 19 towers. CUORE began its first physics data run in 2017 at a base temperature of about 10 mK and in April 2021 released its 3 rd result of the search for 0 νββ, corresponding to a tonne-year of TeO 2 exposure. This is the largest amount of data ever acquired with a solid state detector and the most sensitive measurement of 0 νββ decay in 130Te ever conducted. We present the current status of CUORE search for 0 νββ with the updated statistics of one tonne-yr. We finally give an update of the CUORE background model and the measurement of the 130Te 2 νββ decay half-life and decay to excited states of 130Xe , studies performed using an exposure of 300.7 kg yr.

CUORE, the Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events, is an experiment searching for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 130Te. The first CUORE dataset was acquired in May and June 2017 and consisted of 10.6 kg-yr of TeO2 exposure, with several days of calibration data before and after the physics dataset. We discuss here the initial performance of the CUORE detector and cryostat in this first dataset.

CUORE is a ton-scale experiment approaching the data taking phase in Gran Sasso National Laboratory. Its primary goal is to search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay in 130Te using 988 crystals of tellurim dioxide. The crystals are operated as bolometers at about 10 mK taking advantage of one of the largest dilution cryostat ever built. Concluded in March 2016, the cryostat commissioning consisted in a sequence of cool down runs each one integrating new parts of the apparatus. The last run was performed with the fully configured cryostat and the thermal load at 4 K reached the impressive mass of about 14 tons. During that run the base temperature of 6.3 mK was reached and maintained for more than 70 days. An array of 8 crystals, called mini-tower, was used to check bolometers operation, readout electronics and DAQ. Results will be presented in terms of cooling power, electronic noise, energy resolution and preliminary background measurements.