USE OF HIGH SURFACE NANOFIBROUS MATERIALS IN MEDICINE

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Alexithymia and somatisation in patients with remitted major depression and their impact on social functioning

Objectives: The aim of the present study is to investigate the level of social functioning, alexithymia and somatisation in patients with major depressive disorder who achieved full remission and to examine the impact of alexithymia and somatisation on social functioning in patients with major depression who are in full remission. Methods: A total of 117 outpatients with major depression and full remission and 42 healthy controls were included in the study. The participants were administrated Affect Underpinned by Severity and Social Impairment Questionnaire (AUSSI) to evaluate social functioning and depressive symptoms, Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) to evaluate alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Scale (SSAS) to evaluate somatisation. Forty-one patients who scored higher or equal to the cut-off score of 5 on the social impairment subscale of AUSSI were classified as having impaired social functioning, whereas 76 patients who scored less than 5 were classified as having unimpaired social functioning. Results: There were no significant differences between the groups for AUSSI mood symptoms subscale score. Patients with impaired social functioning scored higher than controls on TAS score. Patients with both impaired and unimpaired social functioning scored higher than controls on SSAS scores. The only significant predictor of social impairment in patients with major depression who were in full remission was AUSSI mood symptoms subscale score. Conclusion: Patients with major depression may still have social impairment after remission. Depressive symptoms are the most important predictors of social functioning in patients with remitted depression. Maximum precautions should be taken to treat depression without leaving any residual symptoms

Masks, Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality: on Facial Politics in the Covid-19 Era

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Axioma - Publicações da Faculdade de Filosofia via the DOI in this recordPhilosophical issues of hospitality are bound up with broader issues of cosmopolitanism in thought and in practice. This paper considers the interplay of human faces, masks, forms of hospitality, and cosmopolitanizing and anti-cosmopolitanizing socio-political dynamics in the time of Covid-19. Despite confident assertions by some interested parties that it is now finished and past history, Covid-19 remains a major challenge across the globe, and so reflections on the interplay of masking, cosmopolitanism, and hospitality remain pertinent today and are not merely a quaint feature of life during the early years of the pandemic. Voluntary acts of self-masking are argued to be more than just mundane forms of micro-level action and interaction among persons. Instead, freighted sometimes with political meaning, and certainly loaded with ethical force, the donning of a face mask can operate as a small but compelling quotidian act of cosmopolitan concern and hospitableness towards other people, including those perceived to be very unlike oneself

Fluid Meniscus Dynamics in a Multi-walled Carbon Nanotube

The thermal contraction/expansion of an isolated liquid volume inside a closed-end carbon nanotube is described in terms of high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM) observations in real time. The liquid volume is of the order of 1 atto (10^-18) liter