Duloxetine in panic disorder with somatic gastric pain

Panic disorder is the most common type of anxiety disorder, and its most common expression is panic attacks characterized with sudden attacks of anxiety with numerous symptoms, including palpitations, tachycardia, tachypnea, nausea, and vertigo: ie, cardiovascular, gastroenterologic, respiratory, and neuro-otologic symptoms. In clinical practice, panic disorder manifests with isolated gastroenteric or cardiovascular symptoms, requiring additional clinical visits after psychiatric intervention. The first-line treatment for anxiety disorders, and in particular for panic disorder, is the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. However, these drugs can have adverse effects, including sexual dysfunction, increased bodyweight, and abnormal bleeding, that may be problematic for some patients. Here we report the case of a 29-year-old Caucasian woman affected by panic disorder with agoraphobia who was referred to our clinic for recurrent gastroenteric panic symptoms. The patient reported improvement in her anxiety symptoms and panic attacks while on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but not in her gastric somatic problems, so the decision was taken to start her on duloxetine, a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. After 6 months of treatment, the patient achieved complete remission of her gastric and panic-related symptoms, and was able to stop triple gastric therapy. Other authors have hypothesized and confirmed that duloxetine has greater initial noradrenergic effects than venlafaxine and is effective in patients with panic disorder. This case report underscores the possibility of tailoring therapeutic strategies for the gastroenteric expression of panic disorder

Binge Eating Disorder and Body Uneasiness

Debate continues regarding the nosological status of binge eating disorder (BED) and the specific diagnostic criteria, including whether, like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, it should be characterized by body image disturbances in addition to abnormal eating behaviour. The aims of this article are: a) to concisely review the main points of the literature that has developed on diagnosis and treatment (especially pharmacological) of BED and b) to present the results of an original research on body image in obese patients with BED. The study was aimed to verify the following hypothesis: in persons with obesity, BED is associated with greater body uneasiness independently of some possible modulating factors. We studied a clinical sample of 159 (89 females and 70 males) adult obese patients who fulfilled DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for BED matched to 159 non-BED obese patients for gender, ethnicity, BMI class, age, weight, stature, onset age of obesity, education level, and marital status. We used the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT), a valuable multidimensional tool for the clinical assessment of body uneasiness in subjects suffering from eating disorders and/or obesity. Obese patients with BED reported higher scores than non-BED patients in the General Severity Index (BUT-A GSI) and in every BUT-A subscale. All differences were statistically significant in both sexes. As expected women obtained higher scores than men. According to some other studies, our findings suggest that a negative body image should be included among diagnostic criteria for BED. Consequently, treatment should be focused not simply on eating behaviour and outcome studies should evaluate changes of body image as well

HST astrometry in the Orion Nebula Cluster: census of low-mass runaways

We present a catalog of high-precision proper motions in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), based on Treasury Program observations with the Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) ACS/WFC camera. Our catalog contains 2,454 objects in the magnitude range of $14.2<m_{\rm F775W}<24.7$, thus probing the stellar masses of the ONC from $\sim$0.4 $M_\odot$ down to $\sim$0.02 $M_\odot$ over an area of $\sim$550 arcmin$^2$. We provide a number of internal velocity dispersion estimates for the ONC that indicate a weak dependence on the stellar location and mass. There is good agreement with the published velocity dispersion estimates, although nearly all of them (including ours at $\sigma_{v,x}=0.94$ and $\sigma_{v,y}=1.25$ mas yr$^{-1}$) might be biased by the overlapping young stellar populations of Orion A. We identified 4 new ONC candidate runaways based on HST and the Gaia DR2 data, all with masses less than $\sim$1 $M_\odot$. The total census of known candidate runaway sources is 10 -- one of the largest samples ever found in any Milky Way open star cluster. Surprisingly, none of them has the tangential velocity exceeding 20 km s$^{-1}$. If most of them indeed originated in the ONC, it may compel re-examination of dynamical processes in very young star clusters. It appears that the mass function of the ONC is not significantly affected by the lost runaways.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in A

Calcium oxide, potassium phosphite and a Trichoderma enriched compost water suspension protect Capsicum annuum against Phytophthora capsici by priming the immune system

BACKGROUND: Proper management of Phytophthora capsici in pepper cultivation is extremely important, since Phytophthora blight is the main disease of this crop worldwide. In the past, the main strategy adopted had been the use of fungicides, causing, in some cases, the development of P. capsici resistant strains. In this work three different treatments selected from previous studies (potassium phosphite, calcium oxide and a water suspension from Trichoderma sp. TW2 enriched compost) were tested to prove their ability to activate the systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in pepper against P. capsici; acibenzolar‐s‐methyl was used as positive control. Two independent growth chamber pot experiments were performed, spatially dividing the site of treatments application (as radical drench) and the site of inoculation (as agar plug on the third leaf). RESULTS: Leaf lesions were measured, showing a significant reduction on all treated plants compared to the untreated control. To further confirm this hypothesis, the expression levels of three SAR key genes (CaPBR1, CaPO1 and CaDEF1) were evaluated though RT‐Real Time PCR at the three end‐point times: T0, T6 and T24. A significant increase of target genes expression at least in one end‐point time in each treated plant was observed. Eventually, statistical overaccumulation of salicylic acid was observed in the upper leaves at the same end‐point times, through HPLC‐MS/MS analysis. CONCLUSION: This work confirmed the hypothesis that the three treatments tested have the ability to prime the plant immune system, leading pepper to an alert status able to confer a better defence against P. capsici. © 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry

Вища математика. Ч.1. Диференціальне числення у прикладах та задачах

Викладено набір теоретичних та практичних тестів з диференціального числення функції однієї та багатьох змінних. Докладні відповіді, вказівки, розв’язання типових завдань та достатня кількість прикладів для самостійної роботи дозволяють використовувати посібник для всіх видів занять

Ferritin in Joint Arthroplasty: Can It Be a Possible Biochemical Indicator of Articular Pain?

Summary Background: A retrospective study was undertaken to investigate the biochemistry data of a restricted cohort of patients. The aim of our study was to evaluate laboratory data behavior and the VAS pain scale before and after joint replacement. Methods: We produced an elaboration of the biochemical data of 90 orthopedic patients, collected from 2011 to 2013. These 90 patients were divided into 2 groups: one group of 45 patients who claimed severe postoperative pain and one group of 45 patients who showed no or mild postoperative pain. A student's t-test was applied, considering a P value less than 0.05 as statistically significant. Pearson correlation was applied. The pain visual analog scale [VAS] was employed. Results: Significant and relevant unexpected biochemical differences were found between the two groups of patients. The serum level of ferritin was significantly higher in men who claimed postoperative pain. We excluded the possibility that the ferritin difference between the two groups was due to different iron storage or to an inflammatory profile. Conclusions: The correct use of a biochemical database could permit identification of significant values which must be correlated with clinical data: these results confirmed what has been found in a dialysis cohort

Exploiting the Combination of Displacement and Chemical Plating for a Tailored Electroless Deposition of Palladium Films on Copper

Various formulations for electroless deposition, to obtain continuous nanometre-sized and micrometre-sized films of palladium on copper, were compared. We deposited ultrathin films using displacement plating formulations. We obtained continuous films with an equivalent thickness between 6 and 22 nm, measured by exploiting the K-ratio method with SEM-EDS of Pd layers. The Pd films obtained in this step of the work represent a cost-effective catalytic substrate. As a second step, we selected chemical plating as the procedure to obtain palladium films with a thickness in the micrometre range. An ammonia-based Pd chemical plating bath represent one of the most effective chemical plating formulations. To prevent copper substrates from being damaged by ammonia, displacement plating with palladium was also applied as a pre-treatment to make the use of these plating baths a viable way to obtain thicker palladium coatings. Palladium films showing good adherence, compact morphology, and a thickness over 1.5 µm were obtained, proving that the combination of two different electroless techniques was the key to develop a sustainable procedure for micrometre-sized palladium coatings, which could substitute electroplating of Pd in galvanic industry for decorative applications