New political actors in Europe: Beppe Grillo and the M5S

New social and political movements from radically different political positions are emerging across Europe using social media, posing a new challenge to existing political parties and structures. The Pirate Party in Germany and the Occupy movement are examples of movements that have employed social media to grow rapidly and create a significant political and social impact – all in the last three years. Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian and blogger, is one of the first political figures to have embraced this change. He has used social media to communicate, recruit and organise, growing the Moviment 5 Stelle from practically nothing to a major political force in Italy in the space of three years, with it expected to play a crucial role in the 2013 Italian elections. His anti-establishment message has resonated with many against a backdrop of declining trust in political institutions, falling political party membership and ever-lower voter turnout. This report presents the results of a survey of 1,865 Facebook fans of Beppe Grillo and the Movimento 5 Stelle. It includes data on who they are, what they think, and what motivates them to shift from virtual to real-world activism. It also compares them with other similar parties in Western Europe and their attitudes to those of the Italian population. This report is the seventh in a series of country specific briefings about the online support of populist parties across Europe

Improvement of Shelf Life for Space Food Through a Hurdle Approach

The processed and prepackaged spaceflight food system is a critical human support system for manned space flights. As missions extend longer and farther from Earth over the next 20 years, strategies to stabilize the nutritional and sensory quality of food must be identified. For a mission to Mars, the space foods themselves must maintain quality for up to 5 years to align with cargo prepositioning scenarios. Optimizing the food system to achieve a 5-year shelf life mitigates the risk of an inadequate food system during extended missions. Because previous attempts to determine a singular pathway to a 5-year shelf life for food were unsuccessful, this investigation combines several approaches, based on science, technological advancement, and past empirical evidence, that will define the prepackaged food system for long duration missions. This study supports the Advanced Food Technology strategic planning process by identifying food processing, packaging, and storage technologies that will be required for exploration missions and the extent that they must be implemented to achieve a 5-year shelf life for the entire food system

β-blockers in critically ill patients : from physiology to clinical evidence

This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2015 and co-published as a series in Critical Care. Other articles in the series can be found online at http://ccforum.com/series/annualupdate2015. Further information about the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine is available from http://www.springer.com/series/8901

Multiple Monitoring Stations in Big Cities: First Example of Three Spore Traps in Rome

(1) Background: Rome is a municipality with an area of 1287 km(2) and presents floristic-vegetational complexity that is reflected in the composition of aerospora, which are responsible for pollinosis. The presence of airborne pollen can be detected by pollen monitoring. The large extent of the city's territory makes it possible to verify possible changes in pollen composition in different sites of the city. With this in mind, a study was conducted to assess the differences in airborne pollen concentration, considering phenological and production indicators at three different sites in the city. (2) Methods: Pollen data of eight taxa were considered, Alnus spp., Castanea sativa Miller, Cupressaceae-Taxaceae, Olea europaea L., Platanaceae, Poaceae, Quercus spp., and Urticaceae, during 2020 and 2021, using three monitoring samplers. The airborne pollen concentration and the seasons of the three centers were calculated and compared with each other. (3) Results: The diversity between the three samplers shows a phenological succession in accordance with the microclimatic diversity present in the city. The heterogeneity of the airborne pollen concentration reflects the floristic-vegetational diversity, while qualitative and quantitative parameters indicate a homogeneous flowering trend reflecting the seasonality of the various species. (4) Conclusions: The present work and the Italian geographic context suggest the need for a greater number of sampling points to guarantee a true localization of the data. Having several sampling stations also contributes to the protection of health and green areas, which are difficult to manage, conserve, and maintain

Extension of Space Food Shelf Life Through Hurdle Approach

The processed and prepackaged space food system is the main source of crew nutrition, and hence central to astronaut health and performance. Unfortunately, space food quality and nutrition degrade to unacceptable levels in two to three years with current food stabilization technologies. Future exploration missions will require a food system that remains safe, acceptable and nutritious through five years of storage within vehicle resource constraints. The potential of stabilization technologies (alternative storage temperatures, processing, formulation, ingredient source, packaging, and preparation procedures), when combined in hurdle approach, to mitigate quality and nutritional degradation is being assessed. Sixteen representative foods from the International Space Station food system were chosen for production and analysis and will be evaluated initially and at one, three, and five years with potential for analysis at seven years if necessary. Analysis includes changes in color, texture, nutrition, sensory quality, and rehydration ratio when applicable. The food samples will be stored at -20 C, 4 C, and 21 C. Select food samples will also be evaluated at -80 C to determine the impacts of ultra-cold storage after one and five years. Packaging film barrier properties and mechanical integrity will be assessed before and after processing and storage. At the study conclusion, if tested hurdles are adequate, formulation, processing, and storage combinations will be uniquely identified for processed food matrices to achieve a five-year shelf life. This study will provide one of the most comprehensive investigations of long duration food stability ever completed, and the achievement of extended food system stability will have profound impacts to health and performance for spaceflight crews and for relief efforts and military applications on Earth

The occlusion tests and end-expiratory esophageal pressure : measurements and comparison in controlled and assisted ventilation

Background: Esophageal pressure is used as a reliable surrogate of the pleural pressure. It is conventionally measured by an esophageal balloon placed in the lower part of the esophagus. To validate the correct position of the balloon, a positive pressure occlusion test by compressing the thorax during an end-expiratory pause or a Baydur test obtained by occluding the airway during an inspiratory effort is used. An acceptable catheter position is defined when the ratio between the changes in esophageal and airway pressure ( 06Pes/ 06Paw) is close to unity. Sedation and paralysis could affect the accuracy of esophageal pressure measurements. The aim of this study was to evaluate, in mechanically ventilated patients, the effects of paralysis, two different esophageal balloon positions and two PEEP levels on the 06Pes/ 06Paw ratio measured by the positive pressure occlusion and the Baydur tests and on the end-expiratory esophageal pressure and respiratory mechanics (lung and chest wall). Methods: Twenty-one intubated and mechanically ventilated patients (mean age 64.8\ua0\ub1\ua014.0\ua0years, body mass index 24.2\ua0\ub1\ua04.3\ua0kg/m2, PaO2/FiO2 319.4\ua0\ub1\ua0117.3\ua0mmHg) were enrolled. In step 1, patients were sedated and paralyzed during volume-controlled ventilation, and in step 2, they were only sedated during pressure support ventilation. In each step, two esophageal balloon positions (middle and low, between 25\u201330\ua0cm and 40\u201345\ua0cm from the mouth) and two levels of PEEP (0 and 10\ua0cmH2O) were applied. The 06Pes/ 06Paw ratio and end-expiratory esophageal pressure were evaluated. Results: The 06Pes/ 06Paw ratio was slightly higher (+0.11) with positive occlusion test compared with Baydur\u2019s test. The level of PEEP and the esophageal balloon position did not affect this ratio. The 06Pes and 06Paw were significantly related to a correlation coefficient of r\ua0=\ua00.984 during the Baydur test and r\ua0=\ua00.909 in the positive occlusion test. End-expiratory esophageal pressure was significantly higher in sedated and paralyzed patients compared with sedated patients (+2.47\ua0cmH2O) and when esophageal balloon was positioned in the low position (+2.26\ua0cmH2O). The esophageal balloon position slightly influenced the lung elastance, while the PEEP reduced the chest wall elastance without affecting the lung and total respiratory system elastance. Conclusions: Paralysis and balloon position did not clinically affect the measurement of the 06Pes/ 06Paw ratio, while they significantly increased the end-expiratory esophageal pressure

Extracorporeal life support as bridge to lung transplantation : a systematic review

Introduction: Patients with acute respiratory failure requiring respiratory support with invasive mechanical ventilation while awaiting lung transplantation are at a high risk of death. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has been proposed as an alternative bridging strategy to mechanical ventilation. The aim of this study was to assess the current evidence regarding how the ECMO bridge influences patients' survival and length of hospital stay. Methods: We performed a systematic review by searching PubMed, EMBASE and the bibliographies of retrieved articles. Three reviewers independently screened citation titles and abstracts and agreement was reached by consensus. We selected studies enrolling patients who received ECMO with the intention to bridge lung transplant. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs), case-control studies and case series with ten or more patients. Outcomes of interest included survival and length of hospital stay. Quantitative data summaries were made when feasible. Results: We identified 82 studies, of which 14 were included in the final analysis. All 14 were retrospective studies which enrolled 441 patients in total. Because of the broad heterogeneity among the studies we did not perform a meta-analysis. The mortality rate of patients on ECMO before lung transplant and the one-year survival ranged from 10% to 50% and 50% to 90%, respectively. The intensive care and hospital length of stay ranged between a median of 15 to 47 days and 22 to 47 days, respectively. There was a general paucity of high-quality data and significant heterogeneity among studies in the enrolled patients and technology used, which confounded analysis. Conclusions: In most of the studies, patients on ECMO while awaiting lung transplantation also received invasive mechanical ventilation. Therefore, whether ECMO as an alternative, rather than an adjunction, to invasive mechanical ventilation is a better bridging strategy to lung transplantation still remains an unresolved issue. ECMO support as a bridge for these patients could provide acceptable one-year survival. Future studies are needed to investigate ECMO as part of an algorithm of care for patients with end-stage lung disease

Antenatal automatic diagnosis of cleft lip via unsupervised clustering method relying on 3D facial soft tissue landmarks

Objectives Ultrasound (US) is the first-choice device to detect different types of facial dysmorphisms. Anyway, at present no standard protocol has been defined for automatic nor semi-automatic diagnosis. Even though the practitioner's contribution is core, steps towards automatism are to be undertaken. We propose a methodology for diagnosing cleft lip on 3D US scans. Methods A bounded Depth Minimum Steiner Trees (D-MST) clustering algorithm is proposed for discriminating groups of 3D US faces relying on the presence/absence of a cleft lip. The analysis of 3D facial surfaces via Differential Geometry is adopted to extract landmarks. Thus, the extracted geometrical information is elaborated to feed the unsupervised clustering algorithm and produce the classification. The clustering returns the probability of being affected by the pathology, allowing physicians to focus their attention on risky individuals for further analysis. Results The feasibility is tested upon the available 3D US scans data and then deeply investigated for a large dataset of adult individuals. 3D facial Bosphorus database is chosen for the testing, which seven cleft lip-affected individuals are added to, by artificially creating the defect. The algorithm correctly separates left and right-sided cleft lips, while healthy individuals create a unique cluster; thus, the method shows accurate diagnosis results. Conclusions Even if further testing is to be performed on tailored datasets made exclusively of fetal images, this techniques gives hefty hints for a future tailored algorithm. This method also fosters the investigation of the scientific formalisation of the "normotype", which is the representative face of a class of individuals, collecting all the principal anthropometric facial measurements, in order to recognise a normal or syndromic fetus

The PopuList: A Database of Populist, Far-Left, and Far-Right Parties Using Expert-Informed Qualitative Comparative Classification (EiQCC)

Abstract With a proliferation of scholarly work focusing on populist, far-left, and far-right parties, questions have arisen about the correct ways to ideologically classify such parties. To ensure transparency and uniformity in research, the discipline could benefit from a systematic procedure. In this letter, we discuss how we have employed the method of ‘Expert-informed Qualitative Comparative Classification’ (EiQCC) to construct the newest version of The PopuList (3.0) – a database of populist, far-left, and far-right parties in Europe since 1989. This method takes into account the in-depth knowledge of national party experts while allowing for systematic comparative analysis across cases and over time. We also examine how scholars have made use of the previous versions of the dataset, explain how the new version of The PopuList differs from previous ones, and compare it to other data. We conclude with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of The PopuList dataset.</jats:p