How common is isolated nocturnal hypertension?

The growing use of methods to measure blood pressure (BP) under everyday life conditions in ‘out-of-office’ settings, through either 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) or home BP monitoring (HBPM), for defining BP status has led to identification of four specific hypertension phenotypes, characterized by variable agreement or disagreement between office BP (OBP) and out-of-office BP: true normotension (normal office and out-of-office BP), sustained hypertension (both elevated office and out-of-office BP), masked hypertension (normal office BP and out-of-office BP), and white-coat hypertension (WCH), when OBP is elevated, but out-of-office BP levels are within normal limits. The term ‘white-coat hypertension’ is probably a misnomer and a misconception, because it does not necessarily reflect, or at most partially, an alerting reaction or white-coat effect. However, the suggestion to use the term ‘isolated office hypertension’ instead of the more appealing ‘white coat hypertension’ has not gained popularity in clinical practice

Fractional Spectral Moments for Digital Simulation of Multivariate Wind Velocity Fields

In this paper, a method for the digital simulation of wind velocity fields by Fractional Spectral Moment function is proposed. It is shown that by constructing a digital filter whose coefficients are the fractional spectral moments, it is possible to simulate samples of the target process as superposition of Riesz fractional derivatives of a Gaussian white noise processes. The key of this simulation technique is the generalized Taylor expansion proposed by the authors. The method is extended to multivariate processes and practical issues on the implementation of the method are reported.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Leaving home, family support and intergenerational ties in Italy: Some regional differences

In Italy conditions at leaving home are characterized by high age at exit, high proximity with parents and widespread intergenerational support, showing important regional differences. According to the "familistic" approach such conditions spread from strong intergenerational ties. Proximity and support are considered proxies of ties’ strength so that different regional proximity and support correspond to different ties’ intensities. The study aims at analyzing similarities and differences about parent-child ties, proximity and support in selected Italian regions, Liguria, Umbria, Sicily and Sardinia. Results show important differences among regions with respect to proximity and support, suggesting different intensity of intergenerational ties.family ties, intergenerational proximity, intergenerational support, regional comparison

Socio-psychological aspects of grassroots participation in the Transition Movement: An Italian case study

In this article, we present a case study investigating the socio-psychological aspects of grassroots participation in a Transition Town Movement (TTM) community initiative. We analyzed the first Italian Transition initiative: Monteveglio (Bologna), the central hub of the Italian TTM and a key link with the global Transition Network. A qualitative methodology was used to collect and analyze the data consisting of interviews with key informants and ethnographic notes. The results provide further evidence supporting the role of social representations, shared social identities, and collective efficacy beliefs in promoting, sustaining, and shaping activists\u2019 commitment. The movement seems to have great potential to inspire and engage citizens to tackle climate change at a community level. Grassroots engagement of local communities working together provides the vision and the material starting point for a viable pathway for the changes required. Attempting to ensure their future political relevance, the TTM adherents are striving to disseminate and materially consolidate inherently political and prefigurative movement frames \u2013 primarily community resilience and re-localization \u2013 within community socio-economic and political frameworks. However, cooperation with politics is perceived by most adherents as a frustrating and dissatisfying experience, and an attempted co-optation of the Transition initiative by institutions. It highlights a tension between the open and non-confrontational approach of the movement towards institutions and their practical experience. Corresponding to this tension, activists have to cope with conflicts, contradictions, and ambivalence of social representations about community action for sustainability, which threaten the sense of collective purpose, group cohesion and ultimately its survival

Regina Coeli

Arrangement of Regina Coeli, one of the four Marian antiphons sung during the night prayers (or compline) of the Church, for solo voice and two-part chorus with organ accompaniment. This song was dedicated to Eduardo Marzo by the composer.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/imri_sheetmusic/1026/thumbnail.jp

Evaluating methodological quality of Prognostic models Including Patient-reported HeAlth outcomes in oncologY (EPIPHANY): A systematic review protocol

Introduction While there is mounting evidence of the independent prognostic value of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) for overall survival (OS) in patients with cancer, it is known that the conduct of these studies may hold a number of methodological challenges. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the quality of published studies in this research area, in order to identify methodological and statistical issues deserving special attention and to also possibly provide evidence-based recommendations. Methods and analysis An electronic search strategy will be performed in PubMed to identify studies developing or validating a prognostic model which includes PROs as predictors. Two reviewers will independently be involved in data collection using a predefined and standardised data extraction form including information related to study characteristics, PROs measures used and multivariable prognostic models. Studies selection will be reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, with data extraction form using fields from the Critical Appraisal and Data Extraction for Systematic Reviews of Prediction Modelling Studies (CHARMS) checklist for multivariable models. Methodological quality assessment will also be performed and will be based on prespecified domains of the CHARMS checklist. As a substantial heterogeneity of included studies is expected, a narrative evidence synthesis will also be provided. Ethics and dissemination Given that this systematic review will use only published data, ethical permissions will not be required. Findings from this review will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at major international conferences. We anticipate that this review will contribute to identify key areas of improvement for conducting and reporting prognostic factor analyses with PROs in oncology and will lay the groundwork for developing future evidence-based recommendations in this area of research. Prospero registration number CRD42018099160