The effect of residential urban greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in youth: A narrative review

Background: Environmental exposures across the life course may be a contributor to the increased worldwide prevalence of respiratory and allergic diseases occurring in the last decades. Asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis especially contribute to the global burden of disease. Greenness has been suggested to have beneficial effects in terms of reduction of occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases. However, the available evidence of a relationship between urban greenness and childhood health outcomes is not yet conclusive. The current review aimed at investigating the current state of evidence, exploring the relationship between children's exposure to residential urban greenness and development of allergic respiratory diseases, jointly considering health outcomes and study design. Methods: The search strategy was designed to identify studies linking urban greenness exposure to asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis, and lung function in children and adolescents. This was a narrative review of literature following PRISMA guidelines performed using electronic search in databases of PubMed and Embase (Ovid) from the date of inception to December 2018. Results: Our search strategy identified 2315 articles; after exclusion of duplicates (n = 701), 1614 articles were screened. Following review of titles and abstracts, 162 articles were identified as potentially eligible. Of these, 148 were excluded following full-text evaluation, and 14 were included in this review. Different methods for assessing greenness exposure were found; the most used was Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Asthma, wheezing, bronchitis, rhinoconjunctivitis, allergic symptoms, lung function, and allergic sensitization were the outcomes assessed in the identified studies; among them, asthma was the one most frequently investigated. Conclusions: The present review showed inconsistencies in the results mainly due to differences in study design, population, exposure assessment, geographic region, and ascertainment of outcome. Overall, there is a suggestion of an association between urban greenness in early life and the occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases during childhood, although the evidence is still inconsistent. It is therefore hard to draw a conclusive interpretation, so that the understanding of the impact of greenness on allergic respiratory diseases in children and adolescents remains difficult

Modeling of Mid-IR Amplifier Based on an Erbium-Doped Chalcogenide Microsphere

An optical amplifier based on a tapered fiber and an Er3+-doped chalcogenide microsphere is designed and optimized. A dedicated 3D numerical model, which exploits the coupled mode theory and the rate equations, is used. The main transitions among the erbium energy levels, the amplified spontaneous emission, and the most important secondary transitions pertaining to the ion-ion interactions have been considered. Both the pump and signal beams are efficiently injected and obtained by a suitable design of the taper angle and the fiber-microsphere gap. Moreover, a good overlapping between the optical signals and the rare-earth-doped region is also obtained. In order to evaluate the amplifier performance in reduced computational time, the doped area is partitioned in sectors. The obtained simulation results highlight that a high-efficiency midinfrared amplification can be obtained by using a quite small microsphere

Metallo-Dielectric Multilayer Structure for Lactose Malabsorption Diagnosis through H2 Breath Test

A metallo-dielectric multilayer structure is proposed as a novel approach to the analysis of lactose malabsorption. When lactose intolerance occurs, the bacterial overgrowth in the intestine causes an increased spontaneous emission of H2 in the human breath. By monitoring the changes in the optical properties of a multilayer palladium-polymeric structure, one is able to detect the patient's disease and the level of lactose malabsorption with high sensitivity and rapid response

Wide-band optical field concentrator for low-index core propagation

We propose a novel chirped structure consisting of a low index polymer core bounded by modulated multilayer claddings, to realize an optical field concentrator with virtually zero propagation losses in a wide spectral range, independent of wave polarization. In spite of the absence of the total internal reflection mechanism, properly designed multilayer claddings ensure the achievement of unitary transmittance in a wide spectral range, including the widely used wavelengths for optical communications. Several cladding geometries obtained by varying the thicknesses of the cladding layers are reported and discussed.Comment: submitted to the Journal of the European Optical Societ

Compositional Genome Contexts Affect Gene Expression Control in Sea Urchin Embryo

Gene expression is widely perceived as exclusively controlled by the information contained in cis-regulatory regions. These are built in a modular way, each module being a cluster of binding sites for the transcription factors that control the level, the location and the time at which gene transcription takes place. On the other hand, results from our laboratory have shown that gene expression is affected by the compositional properties (GC levels) of the isochores in which genes are embedded, i.e. the genome context. To clarify how compositional genomic properties affect the way cis-regulatory information is utilized, we have changed the genome context of a GFP-reporter gene containing the complete cis-regulatory region of the gene spdeadringer (spdri), expressed during sea urchin embryogenesis. We have observed that GC levels higher or lower than those found in the natural genome context can alter the reporter expression pattern. We explain this as the result of an interference with the functionality of specific modules in the gene's cis-regulatory region. From these observations we derive the notion that the compositional properties of the genome context can affect cis-regulatory control of gene expression. Therefore although the way a gene works depends on the information contained in its cis-regulatory region, availability of such information depends on the compositional properties of the genomic context

Anti-asthma medication prescribing to children in the Lombardy Region of Italy: chronic versus new users

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although anti-asthma medications are amongst those most frequently under or over prescribed it is generally accepted that prescriptions for such agents can be used as a proxy for disease prevalence. The aims of this study were to estimate prevalence and incidence of childhood asthma in a representative Italian area by analysing three years of anti-asthmatic prescriptions and hospitalizations of subjects with chronic or first time treatment, and to underline appropriateness of therapeutic choices.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The analysis involved prescriptions given to 6-17 year olds between 2003 and 2005 in Italy's Lombardy Region. The youths were classified as potential asthmatics, based on the different degree of drug utilization: occasional, low or high users, and grouped as 'new onset' or 'chronic' cases based on the duration of therapy dispensed. The analysis of prescriptions and hospitalization rate of these groups provided an estimate of the 2005 asthma prevalence and incidence and allowed an estimation of the level of appropriateness of treatments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During 2005, the estimated incidence of potential asthmatics was 0.8% and the estimated prevalence was 3.5%. When viewed retrospectively for two years, records showed that 47% of potential asthmatics received prescriptions also during 2004 and 30% also during 2003. During the three years considered, 7.5%, 2.8%, and 1.5% of high, low, and occasional users, respectively, were hospitalized for asthma. The most important inappropriateness found was the prescription of long acting beta adrenergics as first time treatment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study allowed a proxy of asthma incidence, prevalence, and severity. The analyses highlighted a low compliance with the guidelines, suggesting that educational interventions are needed to obtain a more rational management of childhood asthma, especially in subjects starting therapy.</p

Meritocratic aspects concerning civil servant career: comparative study in Central and Eastern European countries

Central and Eastern Europe has known in the last 20 years profound changes. The shift from a dictatorial system to a democratic system forced the states from this area to adopt structural measures for all public institutions. In this context, the institution of "civil servant" could not remain unaffected. In the period of communist regimes, the institution of "civil servant" did not exist, the civil servant being just a simple employee of the state. Work relations were the same as for any employee. The shift to another political system, the democratic one, determined the reconsideration the role and the place of public administration, and implicit of civil servant in the framework of the state system. In this context, it has been a shift from the statute of simple employee to that of civil servant, representing the power of the state. In the process of accession to the European Union, the states from Central and Eastern Europe have been permanently pressured to clearly define a strategy concerning the competitiveness of public administration, concerning the statute and the career of civil servant. In the context of democratisation, we can notice that the principle of meritocracy has become a key principle in the civil servant's career. The term "meritocracy" is often used in order to describe a type of society in which wealth and social position are obtained mainly through competition or through ability or proved competences. A position invested with responsibilities and social prestige has to be acquired and not inherited or obtained by arbitrary criteria. Meritocracy represents also the term used to describe or to criticise a society in competition that accepts inequitable disparities of income, wealth and social position. Taking into account the above considerations, the present paper aims to achieve an analysis of meritocratic aspects in the systems of planning and promotion of civil servant's career in Central and Eastern Europe