A note on the fibres of Mori fibre spaces

In this note we consider the problem of determining which Fano manifolds can be realised as fibres of a Mori fibre space. In particular, we study the case of toric varieties, Fano manifolds with high index and some Fano manifolds with high Picard rank

Torus equivariant K-stability

It is conjectured that to test the K-polystability of a polarised variety it is enough to consider test-configurations which are equivariant with respect to a torus in the automorphism group. We prove partial results towards this conjecture. We also show that it would give a new proof of the K-polystability of constant scalar curvature polarised manifolds

The Gauss map and secants of the Kummer variety

Fay's trisecant formula shows that the Kummer variety of the Jacobian of a smooth projective curve has a four-dimensional family of trisecant lines. We study when these lines intersect the theta divisor of the Jacobian and prove that the Gauss map of the theta divisor is constant on these points of intersection, when defined. We investigate the relation between the Gauss map and multisecant planes of the Kummer variety as well

Theta divisors whose Gauss map has a fiber of positive dimension

We construct families of principally polarized abelian varieties whose theta divisor is irreducible and contains an abelian subvariety. These families are used to construct examples when the Gauss map of the theta divisor is only generically finite and not finite. That is, the Gauss map in these cases has at least one positive-dimensional fiber. We also obtain lower-bounds on the dimension of Andreotti-Mayer loci.CONICYT PIA ACT1415 Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1118096

A course for non technical skills improvement in the Emergency Department

People who work closely in high risk situations are likely to get in the condition of handle potential errors with serious consequences. Recent studies showed that almost 50% of medical errors are due a lack on Non Techinical Skills (NTSs). NTSs are \u2018the cognitive, social and personal resource skills that complement technical skills and contribute to safe and efficient task performance (management, teamwork, situation awareness and leadership). In this regard, even in the health sector, it is increasing the need of training programs for developing NTSs in order to increase reliability and safety levels. In fact lack of NTSs is increasingly recognized as an important underlying cause of adverse events in healthcare. Until now, the medical areas that demonstrate a strong attention to these issues that are mainly surgery and anesthesia. More recently analysis of adverse events in the Emergency Department reveals that factors contributing usually relate to a lack of NTSs such situational awareness, decision making, communication and teamwork, and leadership. In order to improve task management of the Emergency Department of the Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Integrata in Verona (Italy), we developed a 30 hours course for improving physicians\u2019 and nurses\u2019 NTSs. Our experience our experience is inspired by what has been done in recent years in the aviation sector particularly the Crew Resource Management (CRM). The course, divided in three parts, involves 5 physicians and 5 nurses and active learning plays a pivotal role. In the first part the student learns the role and importance of the NTSs and their components: decision making, situation awareness, decision making, communication and team working, leadership. In this part of the course are also analyzed threats and error management. The following step is the analysis of evaluation grids in medical fields and the NOTECHS grid. In the aftermath an evaluation grid for NTSs in the emergency department is developed. The role playing with interactive simulating dummy constitutes the final part of the course. The purpose is to strengthen the assessment capacity of the learner. In fact, by the end of the course each student has to be able to evaluate NTSs of Emergency Department components in order to achieve improvement of their NTSs. In the Italian context, this type of training, is still struggling to take off. The topics related to clinical risk and, in particular, the non-technical skills continue to remain on the sidelines of the institutionalized training courses and are a benefit of a few. The importance of these components in mostly evident in emergency situations, like the Emergency Department is, with high interaction with the patient. The impact of NTSs is crucial not only for the patient \u2013 physician interaction but also in the relationships between colleagues and with others units, as they facilitate the establishment of a fluid relationship that improve operational quality and the results to be achieved. Emergency, especially in overcrowded setting, is an unforeseeable event, characterized by a strong emotional impact, and timeliness of actions for which it is essential that everyone knows who does what, how, when and why. We believe that improving NTSs is important for the specific characteristics of the Emergency Department, different from other hospital units. Health activities are not programmable in any way, but are carried out mostly justin- time mostly at the moment and respecting the needs of urgency. The emergency room personnel, in fact, work in unusual situations in which the health of the individual patient, threatened by an acute event, must be protected in a race against time and against the difficulties caused by the continuous influx of other users. The operator does not know the patient who will visit, information available are lacking or incomplete with respect to the patient's medical history. As highlighted in previous studies, the peculiar context of the emergence increases the possibility of error. Our challenge lies in the ability to identify solutions, strategies or tools that facilitate overcoming these risk factors. These solutions can be at individual level, through the adoption of techniques limiting the problems related to decision making and attention to the collection of information. The acquisition of skills related to teamwork and communication and leadership will improve the group working of the Emergency Department

L\u2019impatto dell\u2019abuso di alcolici sui dipartimenti di emergenza: studio preliminare presso una UOC di pronto soccorso dell\u2019Azienda Ospedaliera Uni-versitaria Integrata di Verona

OBIETTIVI: Valutare l\u2019impatto degli accessi per esotossicosi etilica (EE) sull\u2019Unit\ue0 Operativa Complessa di Pronto Soccorso (UOCPS) dell\u2019Ospedale di Borgo Trento dell\u2019Azienda Ospedaliera Integrata (AOUI) di Verona. METODI: I dati personali e clinici e dei pazienti inclusi nello studio tra il 1/1/2003 e 31/12/2008, sono stati rilevati dai verbali dell\u2019UOCPS (circa 98.800 accessi/anno). Sono stati inclusi nello studio i pazienti che presentavano all'arrivo all'UOCPS una diagnosi clinica di EE o una misurazione dell\u2019alcolemia eseguita per altri motivi ma che potevano essere correlati con eccessivo consumo alcoolico (traumi e altro). I dati ottenuti sono stati quindi inseriti ed elaborati tramite un database Excel. RISULTATI: 1547 pazienti sono stati inclusi nello studio. 85% erano maschi e 15% femmine. L\u2019et\ue0 media era di 42 anni (range 16-92), simile nei due sessi. La fascia d\u2019et\ue0 prevalente \ue8 quella fra i 41 e i 50 con 431 ricoveri (28%), cosi come lo stato civile di celibe (36%). Il sabato e la domenica sono stati i giorni con il maggior numero di accessi (rispettivamente 17 e 18% del totale settimanale) mentre non sono state rilevate variazioni significative fra i diversi mesi dell\u2019anno. Gli individui al di sotto dei 30 anni arrivati al Pronto Soccorso durante il weekend sono pi\uf9 numerosi di quelli infrasettimanali, trend che si inverte per le classi d\u2019et\ue0 pi\uf9 elevate. Nell'arco delle 24 ore il picco si registra nel tardo pomeriggio e di notte. Gli stranieri sono risultati 440 (29%). Considerando il dato rapportato alla popolazione residente nel Comune, gli stranieri sono ricorsi all\u2019UOCPS pi\uf9 frequentemente rispetto agli italiani (123 vs 47x105 abitanti/anno). I pi\uf9 numerosi sono stati i soggetti provenienti dal Marocco con 90 casi. Per quanto riguarda il triage del campione: verde il 65%, giallo il 26%, e rosso il 2%. Il 54,6% dei pazienti \ue8 entrato con diagnosi primaria ed esclusiva di esotossicosi etilica, gli altri a causa di patologie associate. Il 4 % dei visitati \ue8 stato ricoverato presso un reparto dell\u2019ospedale la maggior parte \ue8 stata inviata al proprio MMG oppure ha abbandonato (59%) la struttura prima della fine dell\u2019iter diagnostico-terapeutico. CONCLUSIONI: Lo studio rappresenta una valutazione preliminare dell\u2019impatto dei casi di EE sull\u2019UOCPS in termini di numero assoluto, di trend temporali (giorno, mese, anno) e di caratteristiche socio demografiche: ulteriori analisi permetteranno valutazioni economiche ed eventuali interventi di educazione sanitaria

Tryptase serum level as a possible indicator of scombroid syndrome.

Scombroid syndrome (histamine fish poisoning--HFP) is a complex of symptoms caused by biogenic amines, mainly histamine, contained in seafood. The diagnosis of HFP is quite difficult as the symptoms of this particular condition are similar to the symptoms of a normal allergic syndrome.We have collected 10 cases (3 male and 7 female) of HFP and 50 non-HFP patients (35 female and 15 male) with allergic disorders, all from the Emergency Department of Ospedale Civile Maggiore in Verona.As expected, tryptase serum concentrations of most of the patients with allergic or anaphylactic disorders were increased above normal value (24.4+/-8.0 ng/mL mean+/-SD, normal value<11 ng/mL), whereas the tryptase serum concentrations of all the 10 patients with HFP were within the normal range (8.1+/-1.8 ng/mL).Our data suggest that tryptase serum concentrations can discriminate between the allergic and HFP syndromes. As the tryptase half-life is 90-120 min, blood samples must be taken 1-2 h from the beginning of symptoms.Finding a biomarker could help physicians to formulate a correct diagnosis and thus in choosing the best therapeutic strategy. In this work, we analyzed the role of tryptase serum concentrations to differentiate real allergic syndromes from the HFP syndrome, which causes similar histamine-mediated effects by a different mechanism