Medical use of cannabis: italian and european legislation

This review illustrates some brief considerations of the medical use of cannabis recently issued in Italy. History and uses of cannabis throughout centuries and different countries are illustrated together with a description of botany and active phytocannabinoids. Then, medical use of cannabis anti-pain treatment for patients resistant to conventional therapies is described in case of chronic neuropathic pain, spasticity, for anticinetosic and antiemetic effect in nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, for appetite stimulating effect in cachexia, anorexia, loss of appetite in cancer patients or patients with AIDS and in anorexia nervosa, hypotensive effect in glaucoma resistant to conventional therapies and for reduction of involuntary body and facial movements in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Italian most recent legislation on medical cannabis is detailed with some law proposals, also showing the inconsistent legislation within European Union. Some final considerations of future studies are also reported

Leptogenesis with heavy neutrino flavours: from density matrix to Boltzmann equations

Leptogenesis with heavy neutrino flavours is discussed within a density matrix formalism. We write the density matrix equation, describing the generation of the matter-antimatter asymmetry, for an arbitrary choice of the right-handed (RH) neutrino masses. For hierarchical RH neutrino masses lying in the fully flavoured regimes, this reduces to multiple-stage Boltzmann equations. In this case we recover and extend results previously derived within a quantum state collapse description. We confirm the generic existence of phantom terms. However, taking into account the effect of gauge interactions, we show that they are washed out at the production with a wash-out rate that is halved compared to that one acting on the total asymmetry. In the N_1-dominated scenario they cancel without contributing to the final baryon asymmetry. In other scenarios they do not in general and they have to be taken into account. We also confirm that there is a (orthogonal) component in the asymmetry produced by the heavier RH neutrinos which completely escapes the washout from the lighter RH neutrinos and show that phantom terms additionally contribute to it. The other (parallel) component is washed out with the usual exponential factor, even for weak washout. Finally, as an illustration, we study the two RH neutrino model in the light of the above findings, showing that phantom terms can contribute to the final asymmetry also in this case.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figures; v2: added Appendix and discussion in 2.2 on lepton-antilepton flavour compositions difference (eq. (28) is a new result); footnotes 4 and 5; new effect of gauge interactions in inducing wash-out of phantom terms but with halved wash-out rate compared to the total asymmetry wash-out rate; matches JCAP versio

Synthesis and application of zeolite and glass fiber supported zero valent iron nanoparticles as membrane component for removal nitrate and Cr (+6) ions

In the present paper the synthesis and characterization of zeolite and glass fiber supported zero valent iron nanoparticles (Ze-ZVI, GF-ZVI NPs) are reported.ZVI, Ze-ZVI and GF-ZVI NPs size, composition and morphology were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). Synthesized nanostructures were tested as reducing agents of nitrate and hexavalent Chromium. Batch experiments were carried for revealing of efficacy of prepared nanomaterials (ZE-ZVI NPs and GF-ZVI NPs). Nitrate removal efficiency (at initial concentration 50 mg/mL) was rapidly increased from 26% to 76% for GF-ZVI NPs at 60-240 min time interval for and from 34% to 90% for ZE-ZVI NPs at the same time interval.Also was studied the efficacy of prepared nanostructures ZE-ZVI and ZE-ZVI NPs as membrane component with 5% of ZVI NPS weight contentfor the removal of nitrate from water solution that made 85% for ZE-ZVI NPs and 76% for GF-ZVI NPs, respectively. The results of this study indicate that the application of GF-ZVI and ZE-ZVI NPs as membrane component is advantageous because it allows to prevent the additional pollution of treated solution caused by unreacted ZVI NPs

NonClassicality Criteria in Multiport Interferometry

Interference lies at the heart of the behavior of classical and quantum light. It is thus crucial to understand the boundaries between which interference patterns can be explained by a classical electromagnetic description of light and which, on the other hand, can only be understood with a proper quantum mechanical approach. While the case of two-mode interference has received a lot of attention, the multimode case has not yet been fully explored. Here we study a general scenario of intensity interferometry: we derive a bound on the average correlations between pairs of output intensities for the classical wavelike model of light, and we show how it can be violated in a quantum framework. As a consequence, this violation acts as a nonclassicality witness, able to detect the presence of sources with sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics. We also develop a criterion that can certify the impossibility of dividing a given interferometer into two independent subblocks.Comment: 5 + 3 pages, published versio

Pain-motor integration in the primary motor cortex in Parkinson's disease

In Parkinson's disease (PD), the influence of chronic pain on motor features has never been investigated. We have recently designed a technique that combines nociceptive system activation by laser stimuli and primary motor cortex (M1) activation through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in a laser-paired associative stimulation design (Laser-PAS). In controls, Laser-PAS induces long-term changes in motor evoked potentials reflecting M1 long-term potentiation-like plasticity, arising from pain-motor integration

Controlled surface initiated polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide from polycaprolactone substrates for regulating cell attachment and detachment

Poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) substrates were modified with thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) brushes to direct and control cellular attachment and detachment. Prior to brush growth, the surface of PCL was activated by a diamine to allow for initiator coupling. Infrared spectra taken before and after cell culturing demonstrated the covalently attached nature of the PNIPAM brushes. PCL is a biocompatible polymer and to prove that the modifications described above did not change this characteristic property, a cell attachment/detachment study was carried out. The modified substrates showed a lower cell attachment when compared to PCL alone and to PCL films modified with the initiator. The possibility to detach the cells in the form of a sheet was proved using PNIPAM-modified PCL films by lowering the temperature to 25 °C. No relevant detachment was shown by the unmodified or by the initiator modified surfaces. This confirmed that the detachment was temperature dependent and not connected to other factors such as polymer swelling. These functionalized polymeric films can find applications as smart cell culture systems in regenerative medicine applications

Electronic phase separation near the superconductor-insulator transition of Nd1+xBa2−xCu3O7−δ thin films studied by an electric-field-induced doping effect

We report a detailed study of the transport properties of Nd(1+x)Ba(2-x)Cu(3)O(7-delta) thin films with doping changed by field effect. The data cover the whole superconducting to insulating transition and show remarkable Similarities with the effect of chemical doping in high critical temperature superconductors. The results suggest that the add-on of carriers is accompanied by an electronic phase separation, independent on the details of the doping mechanism

Role of structure of the Pp/magnetite nanocomposites on their thermal properties

The thermal degradation behaviour of polypropylene and its magnetite composites have been investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Distribution of magnetite nanoparticles in a polymer matrix has been studied by scanning and transmission electron microscopy and also atomic force microscopy. The thermal and mechanical properties of nanocomposites based on polypropylene and magnetite nanoparticles have also been investigated. It has shown that, the introduction of Fe3O4 nanoparticles in polypropylene increases its thermal stability of about 1000C. The maximum increase in the thermal stability of PP was observed in the case of a 20% weight content of Fe3O4 nanoparticles in polypropylene

Advancements in uterus transplant: new scenarios and future implications

Women suffering from Uterine Factor infertility (UFI) arising from congenital conditions (e.g., Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome) or hysterectomy can fulfill their wish to achieve motherhood only by resorting to surro gacy, which is, however, banned in most countries. Medical research has long been looking into uterus transplant (UTx), which may constitute a valuable alternative for such patients. Following decades of animal testing and clinical trials, several successful pregnancies have been car ried to term. Yet UTx is still to be considered as an experimental procedure. The report's authors believe UTx has the potential to become a main stream surgical practice, but for the time being, several ethical issues need to be weighed in be fore it does

MicroRNAs from saliva of anopheline mosquitoes mimic human endogenous miRNAs and may contribute to vector-host-pathogen interactions

During blood feeding haematophagous arthropods inject into their hosts a cocktail of salivary proteins whose main role is to counteract host haemostasis, inflammation and immunity. However, animal body fluids are known to also carry miRNAs. To get insights into saliva and salivary gland miRNA repertoires of the African malaria vector Anopheles coluzzii we used small RNA-Seq and identified 214 miRNAs, including tissue-enriched, sex-biased and putative novel anopheline miRNAs. Noteworthy, miRNAs were asymmetrically distributed between saliva and salivary glands, suggesting that selected miRNAs may be preferentially directed toward mosquito saliva. The evolutionary conservation of a subset of saliva miRNAs in Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes, and in the tick Ixodes ricinus, supports the idea of a non-random occurrence pointing to their possible physiological role in blood feeding by arthropods. Strikingly, eleven of the most abundant An. coluzzi saliva miRNAs mimicked human miRNAs. Prediction analysis and search for experimentally validated targets indicated that miRNAs from An. coluzzii saliva may act on host mRNAs involved in immune and inflammatory responses. Overall, this study raises the intriguing hypothesis that miRNAs injected into vertebrates with vector saliva may contribute to host manipulation with possible implication for vector-host interaction and pathogen transmission