Investigating the association between patient verbal aggression and emotional exhaustion among Italian health care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

Aims: To analyze whether patient verbal aggression would be related to emotional exhaustion and whether this relationship would be mediated by work–family conflict and moderated by dehumanization and resilience. Background: Although patient verbal aggression has been identified as one of the most experienced forms of aggression, its effects on Italian health care providers during the pandemic are still poorly known. Methods: A total of 197 Italian health care professionals completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and moderated mediation analyses were performed. Results: Patient verbal aggression was positively related to health care professionals' emotional exhaustion, both directly and indirectly, as mediated by work–family conflict. Health care providers were more likely to become emotionally exhausted when they had low resilience and, simultaneously, tended to ascribe patients non-uniquely human traits. Conclusions: Patient verbal aggression may spill over onto health care professionals' family lives. Dehumanization represents an ineffective coping strategy that exacerbates the effects of aggression on work–family conflict, whereas resilience represents a protective resource against emotional exhaustion. Implications for nursing management: Hospital organisations could benefit from providing their staff with stress management interventions, aggression management, psychological support and psychological resilience training programmes. These programmes should incorporate coping skills on establishing work–home boundaries and balancing empathy with cognitive problem-solving abilities

Modal identification of storage racks for cheese wheels

During the Emilia-Romagna earthquake (2012), a great number of steel racks used to store cheese wheels collapsed, causing a non-negligible damage to the Italian economy. Therefore, for similar structures that survived and are in service, a deep investigation towards the assessment of their effective safety is required. In the seismic analysis of these frames, the mechanical constraint acting onto the racks due to the reinforced concrete sidewalls, possible nonlinearities exhibited by the base-plate joints and the in-plane restraint provided by wooden boards that connects adjacent columns should be carefully modelled to ensure realistic design results. In the paper, an experimental activity, based on suitable modal identification techniques, is presented to capture the dynamic behaviour of these peculiar structures. The scope is to collect data useful to calibrate numerical finite element models in order to accurately define the aforementioned unknown parameters. Furthermore, a few numerical models based on ideal restraints are herein discussed stressing out non-negligible differences in terms of expected seismic and static response

Curcumin and Novel Synthetic Analogs in Cell-Based Studies of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder that is associated with the most common type of dementia and is characterized by the presence of deposits of the protein fragment amyloid beta (A\u3b2) in the brain. The natural product mixture of curcuminoids that improves certain defects in innate immune cells of AD patients may selectively enhance A\u3b2 phagocytosis by alteration of gene transcription. In this work, we evaluated the protective effects of curcuminoids in cells from AD patients by investigating the effect on NF-\u3baB and BACE1 signaling pathways. These results were compared to the gene expression profile of the clearance of A\u3b2. The minor curcumin constituent, bisdemethoxycurcumin (BDC) showed the most potent protective action to decrease levels of NF-\u3baB and BACE1, decrease the inflammatory cascade and diminish A\u3b2 aggregates in cells from AD patients. Moreover, mannosyl-glycoprotein 4-beta-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (MGAT3) and vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene mRNAs were up-regulated in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from AD patients treated with BDC. BDC treatment impacts both gene expression including Mannosyl (Beta-1,4-)-Glycoprotein Beta-1,4-N-Acetylglucosaminyltransferase, Vitamin D and Toll like receptor mRNA and A\u3b2 phagocytosis. The observation of down-regulation of BACE1 and NF-\u3baB following administration of BDC to cells from AD patients as a model system may have utility in the treatment of asymptomatic AD patients

On the Shear Instability in Relativistic Neutron Stars

We present new results on instabilities in rapidly and differentially rotating neutron stars. We model the stars in full general relativity and describe the stellar matter adopting a cold realistic equation of state based on the unified SLy prescription. We provide evidence that rapidly and differentially rotating stars that are below the expected threshold for the dynamical bar-mode instability, beta_c = T/|W| ~ 0.25, do nevertheless develop a shear instability on a dynamical timescale and for a wide range of values of beta. This class of instability, which has so far been found only for small values of beta and with very small growth rates, is therefore more generic than previously found and potentially more effective in producing strong sources of gravitational waves. Overall, our findings support the phenomenological predictions made by Watts, Andersson and Jones on the nature of the low-T/|W|.Comment: 20 pages; accepted to the Classical and Quantum Gravity special issue for MICRA200

Intermediate behavior of Kerr tails

The numerical investigation of wave propagation in the asymptotic domain of Kerr spacetime has only recently been possible thanks to the construction of suitable hyperboloidal coordinates. The asymptotics revealed an apparent puzzle in the decay rates of scalar fields: the late-time rates seemed to depend on whether finite distance observers are in the strong field domain or far away from the rotating black hole, an apparent phenomenon dubbed "splitting". We discuss far-field "splitting" in the full field and near-horizon "splitting" in certain projected modes using horizon-penetrating, hyperboloidal coordinates. For either case we propose an explanation to the cause of the "splitting" behavior, and we determine uniquely decay rates that previous studies found to be ambiguous or immeasurable. The far-field "splitting" is explained by competition between projected modes. The near-horizon "splitting" is due to excitation of lower multipole modes that back excite the multipole mode for which "splitting" is observed. In both cases "splitting" is an intermediate effect, such that asymptotically in time strong field rates are valid at all finite distances. At any finite time, however, there are three domains with different decay rates whose boundaries move outwards during evolution. We then propose a formula for the decay rate of tails that takes into account the inter--mode excitation effect that we study.Comment: 16 page

Gravitational-Wave Extraction from Neutron Star Oscillations: comparing linear and nonlinear techniques

The main aim of this study is the comparison of gravitational waveforms obtained from numerical simulations which employ different numerical evolution approaches and different wave-extraction techniques. For this purpose, we evolve an oscillating, non-rotating polytropic neutron-star model with two different approaches: a full nonlinear relativistic simulation (in three dimensions) and a linear simulation based on perturbation theory. The extraction of the gravitational-wave signal is performed with three methods: The gauge-invariant curvature-perturbation theory based on the Newman-Penrose scalar $\psi_4$; The gauge-invariant Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli-Moncrief metric-perturbation theory of a Schwarzschild space-time; Some generalization of the quadrupole emission formula.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures. Published in Phys. Rev.

Error-analysis and comparison to analytical models of numerical waveforms produced by the NRAR Collaboration

The Numerical-Relativity-Analytical-Relativity (NRAR) collaboration is a joint effort between members of the numerical relativity, analytical relativity and gravitational-wave data analysis communities. The goal of the NRAR collaboration is to produce numerical-relativity simulations of compact binaries and use them to develop accurate analytical templates for the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration to use in detecting gravitational-wave signals and extracting astrophysical information from them. We describe the results of the first stage of the NRAR project, which focused on producing an initial set of numerical waveforms from binary black holes with moderate mass ratios and spins, as well as one non-spinning binary configuration which has a mass ratio of 10. All of the numerical waveforms are analysed in a uniform and consistent manner, with numerical errors evaluated using an analysis code created by members of the NRAR collaboration. We compare previously-calibrated, non-precessing analytical waveforms, notably the effective-one-body (EOB) and phenomenological template families, to the newly-produced numerical waveforms. We find that when the binary's total mass is ~100-200 solar masses, current EOB and phenomenological models of spinning, non-precessing binary waveforms have overlaps above 99% (for advanced LIGO) with all of the non-precessing-binary numerical waveforms with mass ratios <= 4, when maximizing over binary parameters. This implies that the loss of event rate due to modelling error is below 3%. Moreover, the non-spinning EOB waveforms previously calibrated to five non-spinning waveforms with mass ratio smaller than 6 have overlaps above 99.7% with the numerical waveform with a mass ratio of 10, without even maximizing on the binary parameters.Comment: 51 pages, 10 figures; published versio

All-sky search for short gravitational-wave bursts in the second Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo run

We present the results of a search for short-duration gravitational-wave transients in the data from the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We search for gravitational-wave transients with a duration of milliseconds to approximately one second in the 32-4096 Hz frequency band with minimal assumptions about the signal properties, thus targeting a wide variety of sources. We also perform a matched-filter search for gravitational-wave transients from cosmic string cusps for which the waveform is well modeled. The unmodeled search detected gravitational waves from several binary black hole mergers which have been identified by previous analyses. No other significant events have been found by either the unmodeled search or the cosmic string search. We thus present the search sensitivities for a variety of signal waveforms and report upper limits on the source rate density as a function of the characteristic frequency of the signal. These upper limits are a factor of 3 lower than the first observing run, with a 50% detection probability for gravitational-wave emissions with energies of ∼10-9 Mc2 at 153 Hz. For the search dedicated to cosmic string cusps we consider several loop distribution models, and present updated constraints from the same search done in the first observing run

Three little pieces for computer and relativity

Numerical relativity has made big strides over the last decade. A number of problems that have plagued the field for years have now been mostly solved. This progress has transformed numerical relativity into a powerful tool to explore fundamental problems in physics and astrophysics, and I present here three representative examples. These "three little pieces" reflect a personal choice and describe work that I am particularly familiar with. However, many more examples could be made.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures. Plenary talk at "Relativity and Gravitation: 100 Years after Einstein in Prague", June 25 - 29, 2012, Prague, Czech Republic. To appear in the Proceedings (Edition Open Access). Collects results appeared in journal articles [72,73, 122-124