Tension pneumomediastinum in patients with COVID-19

open5nonot presentopenCampisi A.; Poletti V.; Ciarrocchi A.P.; Salvi M.; Stella F.Campisi A.; Poletti V.; Ciarrocchi A.P.; Salvi M.; Stella F

Enabling liquid vapor analysis using synchrotron VUV single photon ionization mass spectrometry with a microfluidic interface.

Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) single photon ionization mass spectrometry (SPI-MS) is a vacuum-based technique typically used for the analysis of gas phase and solid samples, but not for liquids due to the challenge in introducing volatile liquids in a vacuum. Here we present the first demonstration of in situ liquid analysis by integrating the System for Analysis at the Liquid Vacuum Interface (SALVI) microfluidic reactor into VUV SPI-MS. Four representative volatile organic compound (VOC) solutions were used to illustrate the feasibility of liquid analysis. Our results show the accurate mass identification of the VOC molecules and the reliable determination of appearance energy that is consistent with ionization energy for gaseous species in the literature as reported. This work validates that the vacuum-compatible SALVI microfluidic interface can be utilized at the synchrotron beamline and enable the in situ study of gas-phase molecules evaporating off the surface of a liquid, which holds importance in the study of condensed matter chemistry

Psychoanalytic aesthetics: the case of Miró and the 'child-like'

Miró's art is regularly characterised as 'child-like' in art historical literature. That is, his work is taken visually to resemble, or as sharing some of the characteristics (freshness of vision, spontaneity, emotional expressiveness, freedom from traditional illusionistic techniques) attributed to, the artistic productions of children. This analogy with child art (exploited by Expressionists and others in the early years of the twentieth-century) dates in Miró's case to his involvement with Surrealism in the 1920s. It was understood as a more or less conscious intention to exploit the visual characteristics of the successive stages in a child's artistic development. In other words, it was one aspect of Surrealism's engagement with 'primitivist' forms of expression, in which artists appropriated the aesthetic of children's drawings, tribal and folk artifacts, and the artistic productions of the mentally ill. My discussion of Miró is supported by comparison with the work of two other artists, Klee and Chagall, who also borrowed from child art and whose production was likewise associated with childhood by critical literature. Klee's work supports my contention that although Mirós painting bears a passing resemblance to children's drawings, a more sustained analysis demonstrates that it is unlike anything that a child would actually produce. 'Child-likeness', generally a comment on form, becomes in Miró's case question of artistic content, relating to the development and constant recycling of a vocabulary of shapes largely derived from childhood memories. Comparison with Chagall, whose oeuvre was also thematically indebted to childhood memories, allows one to put forward a psychoanalytically informed explanation of the infantile origins of the content that finds expression in art. Miró's thematic 'child-like' content, from this point onwards, is used as a case study to effect the comparison between the theories of Freud (a major influence on Surrealism), and those of the Kleinian tradition within the British Object-Relations School of psychoanalysis, insofar as these have lent themselves to the discussion of art. Both approaches are developmental (Freud and Klein theorised adult psychology as a development of the thought processes of infancy and childhood), and for this reason have been preferred to the topographical and Lacanian orientation adopted in recent applied psychoanalytic literature. \Vhereas Freud's psychoanalysis of art concentrates on the unconscious processes and mechanisms by means of which the fantasy-distorted derivatives of repressed infantile material emerge into consciousness and become the material of art, the Kleinian psychoanalytic aesthetic developed by Segal and Stokes focuses on the unconscious revelations underlying creativity and the phantasy content that finds expression at the level of the medium. Winnicott provides a (poetic) description of the experiences, rooted in childhood perceptual patterns, to which the production of art and its reception give rise. Miró's own accounts of his creative procedures confirm that the unconscious infantile-derived thought processes, motivations and contents theorised by these authors are in .... [?] operative in the production of art, whilst also making clear that creativity is determined by socio-cultural, therefore conscious (and, as such, psychoanalytically unaccounted for) factors. Both the explanatory value and the principal methodological limitation of psychoanalytic aesthetics centre on these two final considerations

Evolutionary and demographic correlates of Pleistocene coastline changes in the Sicilian wall lizard Podarcis wagleriana

Aim Emergence of coastal lowlands during Pleistocene ice ages might have provided conditions for glacial expansions (demographic and spatial), rather than contraction, of coastal populations of temperate species. Here, we tested these predictions in the insular endemic Sicilian wall lizard Podarcis wagleriana. Location Sicily and neighbouring islands. Methods We sampled 179 individuals from 45 localities across the whole range of P. wagleriana. We investigated demographic and spatial variations through time using Bayesian coalescent models (Bayesian phylogeographic reconstruction, Extended Bayesian Skyline plots, Isolation‐with‐migration models) based on multilocus DNA sequence data. We used species distribution modelling to reconstruct present and past habitat suitability. Results We found two main lineages distributed in the east and west portions of the current species range and a third lineage restricted to a small area in the north of Sicily. Multiple lines of evidence from palaeogeographic (shorelines), palaeoclimatic (species distribution models), and multilocus genetic data (demographic and spatial Bayesian reconstructions) indicate that these lineages originated in distinct refugia, located in the north‐western and south‐eastern coastal lowlands, during Middle Pleistocene interglacial phases, and came into secondary contact following demographic and spatial expansions during the last glacial phase. Main conclusions This scenario of interglacial contraction and glacial expansion is in sharp contrast with patterns commonly observed in temperate species on the continent but parallels recent findings on other Mediterranean island endemics. Such a reverse expansion–contraction (EC) dynamic has been likely associated with glacial increases of climatically suitable coastal lowlands, suggesting this might be a general pattern in Mediterranean island species and also in other coastal regions strongly affected by glacial marine regressions during glacial episodes. This study provides explicit predictions and some methodological recommendations for testing the reverse EC model in other region and taxa

Tone-in-noise detection deficits in elderly patients with clinically normal hearing

One of the most common complaints among the elderly is the inability to understand speech in noisy environments. In many cases, these deficits are due to age-related hearing loss; however, some of the elderly that have difficulty hearing in noise have clinically normal pure-tone thresholds. While speech in noise testing is informative, it fails to identify specific frequencies responsible for the speech processing deficit. Auditory neuropathy patients and animal models of hidden hearing loss suggest that tone-in-noise thresholds may provide frequency specific information for those patients who express difficulty, but have normal thresholds in quiet. Therefore, we aimed to determine if tone-in-noise thresholds could be a useful measure in detecting age-related hearing deficits, despite having normal audiometric thresholds

On the speed of Random Walks among Random Conductances

We consider random walk among random conductances where the conductance environment is shift invariant and ergodic. We study which moment conditions of the conductances guarantee speed zero of the random walk. We show that if there exists \alpha>1 such that E[log^\alpha({\omega}_e)]<\infty, then the random walk has speed zero. On the other hand, for each \alpha>1 we provide examples of random walks with non-zero speed and random walks for which the limiting speed does not exist that have E[log^\alpha({\omega}_e)]<\infty.Comment: 22 pages, 4 picture