Vanishing Zeeman energy in a two-dimensional hole gas

A clear signature of Zeeman split states crossing is observed in a Landau fan diagram of strained germanium two-dimensional hole gas. The underlying mechanisms are discussed based on a perturbative model yielding a closed formula for the critical magnetic fields. These fields depend strongly on the energy difference between the topmost and neighboring valence bands and are sensitive to the quantum well thickness, strain, and spin-orbit interaction. The latter is a necessary feature for the crossing to occur. This framework enables a straightforward quantification of the hole-state parameters from simple measurements, thus paving the way for its use in design and modeling of hole-based quantum devices.QCD/Scappucci LabQuTechBusiness Developmen

Polypharmacy in older people: lessons from 10 years of experience with the REPOSI register

As a consequence of population aging, we have witnessed in internal medicine hospital wards a progressive shift from a population of in-patients relatively young and mainly affected by a single ailment to one of ever older and more and more complex patients with multiple chronic diseases, followed as out-patients by many different specialists with poor integration and inevitably treated with multiple medications. Polypharmacy (defined as the chronic intake of five or more drugs) is associated with increased risks of drug-drug interactions and related adverse effects, prescription and intake errors, poor compliance, re-hospitalization and mortality. With this background, the Italian Society of Internal Medicine chose to start in 2008 a prospective register called REPOSI (REgistro POliterapie SIMI, Società Italiana di Medicina Interna) in internal medicine and geriatric hospital wards. The country wide register is an ongoing observatory on multimorbidity and polypharmacy in the oldest old, with the goal to improve prescription appropriateness and, thus to avoid potentially inappropriate medications. The main findings of the register, that has accrued so far, 7005 older patients throughout a 10 year period, are summarized herewith, with special emphasis on the main patterns of poor prescription appropriateness and related risks of adverse events