Requirements for cabin crew medical examinations and assessments

The aim of the current study is to review current regulations relatively to medical requirements necessary to achieve suitability to fly of the cabin crew. There are three classes of flight crew medical standards and licensing. A first class medical certificate is required for all pilots who perform professional flights or skydiving instructors. A second class medical certificate is required only for persons who do not perform professional flights, skydiving activities or any other professional activity related to aircraft piloting (cabin crew, holders of Light Aircraft Pilot’s Licence - LAPL, remote pilot operators). Finally, a third class medical certificate is required for workers engaged in air traffic control

Post vaccinal temporary sensorineural hearing loss

In our systematic research we identified four studies concerning the onset of neurological adverse events following vaccination and two excluding this association. A 33-year-old Italian man, belonging to the Italian Army was hospitalized because he suffered from vertigo, nausea and sudden right hearing loss not classified (NDD), that set in 24 h after the administration of tetanus-diphtheria and meningococcal vaccines. Some neurological events arising after vaccination are very difficult to treat. In our case, the functional recovery on low and medium frequencies was possible about 6 months after the morbid event

ADDICTIONS SUBSTANCE FREE DURING LIFESPAN

The addictions substance free is an umbrella definition comprises internet addiction, sexual addiction, gambling pathological, workholism, videogames and computer addiction. Actually, the technological addictions is frequent in young adolescents. The term Digital Natives indicates the children born in an information system of learning and communication different from that of the generations previous. This temporal range was strongly characterized by growing presence of technological communication toolsin daily life. The effects of hyper-exposition to technological tools tend to create a relational virtuality without a body is born,therefore, already within the family ties and during adolescence he moved to the digital socialization network. The technological object it interacts between the adolescent and the world of peers and adults, becoming the facilitator object that as the psychotropic substance, it conveys new modes of communicatio

Neuropsychological Alterations in Children Affected by Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

Sleep-related breathing disorders are a group of clinical conditions ranging from habitual snoring to obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) during the lifespan. In children, other risk factors are represented by adenotonsillar hypertrophy, rhinitis, nasal structure alteration, cleft palate, velopharyngeal flap surgery, pharyngeal masses, craniofacial malformations, genetic syndrome (i.e. Down syndrome, Crouzon syndrome, and Apert syndrome), genetic hypoplasia mandibular (i.e. Pierre Robin syndrome, Treacher Collins syndrome, Shy-Drager syndrome, and Cornelia De Lange syndrome), craniofacial traumas, chronic or seasonal rhinitis, asthma, neuromuscular syndromes, brainstem pathologies (i.e. Arnold-Chiari malformation and Joubert syndrome), achondroplasia, and mucopolysaccharidosis. OSAS may affect the executive functioning such as motivational ability, planning, behavior modulation, ability to complete an action program, identification of functional strategies to achieve the goal, problem solving, flexibility, monitoring and self-assessment of behavior in relation to results, change of task, or behavior in the light of emerging information, which may be all impaired by nocturnal intermittent hypoxia also during the developmental age. The clinical presentation of OSAS can mimic other neurobehavioral symptoms, such as ADHD syndrome, learning problems, or can exacerbate the Fragile X syndrome, and generalized non-convulsive epilepsy symptoms

Neuropsychological Alterations in Children Affected by Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

Sleep-related breathing disorders are a group of clinical conditions ranging from habitual snoring to obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) during the lifespan. In children, other risk factors are represented by adenotonsillar hypertrophy, rhinitis, nasal structure alteration, cleft palate, velopharyngeal flap surgery, pharyngeal masses, craniofacial malformations, genetic syndrome (i.e. Down syndrome, Crouzon syndrome, and Apert syndrome), genetic hypoplasia mandibular (i.e. Pierre Robin syndrome, Treacher Collins syndrome, Shy-Drager syndrome, and Cornelia De Lange syndrome), craniofacial traumas, chronic or seasonal rhinitis, asthma, neuromuscular syndromes, brainstem pathologies (i.e. Arnold-Chiari malformation and Joubert syndrome), achondroplasia, and mucopolysaccharidosis. OSAS may affect the executive functioning such as motivational ability, planning, behavior modulation, ability to complete an action program, identification of functional strategies to achieve the goal, problem solving, flexibility, monitoring and self-assessment of behavior in relation to results, change of task, or behavior in the light of emerging information, which may be all impaired by nocturnal intermittent hypoxia also during the developmental age. The clinical presentation of OSAS can mimic other neurobehavioral symptoms, such as ADHD syndrome, learning problems, or can exacerbate the Fragile X syndrome, and generalized nonconvulsive epilepsy symptoms

A Submillimetre Search for Cold Extended Debris Disks in the Beta Pictoris Moving Group

The Beta Pictoris Moving Group is a nearby stellar association of young (12Myr) co-moving stars including the classical debris disk star beta Pictoris. Due to their proximity and youth they are excellent targets when searching for submillimetre emission from cold, extended, dust components produced by collisions in Kuiper-Belt-like disks. They also allow an age independent study of debris disk properties as a function of other stellar parameters. We observed 7 infrared-excess stars in the Beta Pictoris Moving Group with the LABOCA bolometer array, operating at a central wavelength of 870 micron at the 12-m submillimetre telescope APEX. The main emission at these wavelengths comes from large, cold dust grains, which constitute the main part of the total dust mass, and hence, for an optically thin case, make better estimates on the total dust mass than earlier infrared observations. Fitting the spectral energy distribution with combined optical and infrared photometry gives information on the temperature and radial extent of the disk. From our sample, beta Pic, HD181327, and HD172555 were detected with at least 3-sigma certainty, while all others are below 2-sigma and considered non-detections. The image of beta Pic shows an offset flux density peak located near the south-west extension of the disk, similar to the one previously found by SCUBA at the JCMT. We present SED fits for detected sources and give an upper limit on the dust mass for undetected ones. We find a mean fractional dust luminosity f_dust=11x10^{-4} at t=12Myr, which together with recent data at 100Myr suggests an f_dust propto t^{-alpha} decline of the emitting dust, with alpha > 0.8.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Growing up -the completion of the VLTI

Abstract. The completed VLTI with eight Delay Lines and eight ATs forms the basis for the second generation instrumentation. We describe the events up to first fringes with the test instrument VINCI using the siderostats, and the planning for the immediate future. Multi beam combination for 'smoother images' will be briefly discussed as well as artificial guide stars for fringe tracking. New technological developments like fiber optics amplifiers and integrated optics in combination with STJ open the door for a new type of interferometric arrays. Baselines as long as a a few kilometres come into reach. Examples of these second generation interferometers will be given

The transcranial stimulation with direct currents (tdcs): An historical and conceptual minireview

Transcranial Stimulation with Direct Currents (tDCS) is a method for non invasive brain stimulation created to induce functional changes in cerebral cortex. tDCS consists of application on the scalp of electrodes providing a low intensity direct current influencing neuronal functions. tDCS is not the only neurostimulation method for neuroscience clinical practice and research and can be used for treat many different clinical conditions such as migraine prevention, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), cerebral palsy rehabilitation, post-traumatic brain injury neuropsychological disorders

3D X-RAY MICRO-CT INTERNAL TEXTURE OF I-TYPE COSMIC SPHERULES

Introduction: Micrometeorites (MMs) are microscopic particles, collected at the Earth’s surface and mainly produced by collisions among solid bodies and by surface evaporation of icy bodies in the Solar System [1]. As such, they provide important information on the compositon of their parent bodies including those that are not sampled by meteorites. I-type cosmic spherules (CS) are dark, opaque, melted micrometeorites dominated by magnetite (Fe3O4) and wüstite (FeO) crystals. I-type CS frequently contain μm-sized Ni-rich Fe,Ni metal beads [2] as well as μm- and nmsized platinum-group element (PGE) nuggets [3]. The aim of this work is twofold: 1) to study the internal textural and structural components (i.e. iron oxides domains, metal beads, PGE nuggets, cavities) of the I-type CS, 2) to characterize the distribution of the metal beads and PGE nuggets and estimate their relative volume/mass. Samples: I-type CS have been collected in loose sediments sampled on the tops of the Transantarctic Mountains [4] during the 2012-13 and 2014-15 Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PNRA) campaign. In Antarctic MMs collections the abundance of I-type spherules is typically less than 2% [5]. Our collection consists of over 3000 MMs. Among these 107 (3.2% of the total) are I-type CS. For this study we have selected 52 I-type CS, ranging from 200 to 800 μm in diameter and 2 with diameters <150 μm. They look fresh (unweathered) under the stereomicroscope-SEM and provide excellent material for our study. Methods: The external morphology of CS has been described by SEM analyses. Subsequently, non-destructive mapping of I-type CS has been carried out by X-ray microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) using a Zeiss Xradia 520 Versa 3D X-ray microscope, at the Electrochemical Innovation Lab, part of the Department of Chemical Engineering of University College London. The microscope was operated at 140 kV with a high energy filter in place (HE1) and an optical magnification of 20X. Results and Discussion: So far 3D tomographic reconstructions on 7 CS have been performed. They allowed: 1) Distinction of four components, i.e. the cavities, the iron oxide domains, the metal beads and the PGE nuggets; 2) Estimation of the true 3D Bead-Volume/Total-Volume ratio and its relationship with the size of the spherules. This allow to obtain atmospheric flight parameters of the spherules. For instance, numerical modeling indicates that metal survival in particles with radius ≥100 μm occur at steep entry angle (>40°) and high entry velocity (>16 km s-1) [6]. 3) Characterization of void distribution. Irregular cavities are frequently observed in I-type CS. They are interpreted as: (i) the result of contraction due to quenching after atmospheric heating [7]; (ii) the product of gaseous exsolution (e.g. O2, SO2) during cooling of iron oxide liquids. 4) Speculate on the origin of the peculiar webstructure of the oxide phases resulting from wüstite domains surrounded by magnetite. More samples are being analyzed in the next weeks. Results will be discussed at the Meeting

Development of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and military service: a case report

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurovegetative disease, and some studies point out a major risk of ALS in people who have served in the armed forces. In this case report we present an Italian case of ALS in a senior officer of the Italian Arm