Low-lipid diet reduces frequency and severity of acute migraine attacks

Background and aim: There is uncertainty regarding the prevention of migraine crises by changing the lifestyle of patients. The aim of this randomized, crossover intervention trial was to evaluate the effects of a low lipid intake on the incidence and severity of migraine crises, in comparison to a diet with moderate lipid intake. Methods and results: After a 2-month run-in when patients received preventive medication but were left on their habitual diet, a low-lipid or a normal-lipid diet was randomly prescribed for 3 months and thereafter diets were crossed over for the following 3 months. Headache was diagnosed based on the International Classification of Headache Disorders (IHCD) III criteria. The number and severity of attacks were assessed using a self-reported calendar. Adherence to the diet was assessed by a food frequency questionnaire. An analysis was performed on the 83 episodic or chronic migraineurs (63 female and 20 male), in the age range of 18e57 years, who completed both intervention periods. Obese subjects had a significantly higher number of attacks than those overweight or with normal body weight (24.7 8, 16.3 12, and 15.6 11, respectively, p < 0.03) with a significant relationship between the body mass index (BMI) and the number of monthly attacks (r Z 0.238, p < 0.03). The number (2.9 3.7 vs. 6.8 7.5, p < 0.001) and severity (1.2 þ 0.9 vs. 1.7 0.9, p < 0.01) of attacks significantly decreased during both intervention periods, with a significant difference in favour of the lowlipid diet. Conclusions: In this group of patients, the low-lipid diet significantly affected the number and severity of migraine attacks in comparison to a normal-lipid diet

Anisotropy of losses in grain-oriented Fe-Si

Comprehensive assessment of the magnetic behavior of grain-oriented steel (GO) Fe-Si sheets, going beyond the conventional characterization at power frequencies along the rolling direction (RD), can be the source of much needed information for the optimal design of transformers and efficient rotating machines. However, the quasi-monocrystal character of the material is conducive, besides an obviously strong anisotropic response, to a dependence of the measured properties on the sample geometry whenever the field is applied along a direction different from the rolling and the transverse (TD) directions. In this work, we show that the energy losses, measured from 1 to 300 Hz on GO sheets cut along directions ranging from 0° to 90° with respect to RD, can be interpreted in terms of linear composition of the same quantities measured along RD and TD. This feature, which applies to both the DC and AC properties, resides on the sample geometry-independent character of the RD and TD magnetization and on the loss separation principle. This amounts to state that, as substantiated by magneto-optical observations, the very same domain wall mechanisms making the magnetization to evolve in the RD and TD sheets, respectively, independently combine and operate in due proportions in all the other cases. By relying on these concepts, which overcome the limitations inherent to the semi-empirical models of the literature, we can consistently describe the magnetic losses as a function of cutting angle and stacking fashion of GO strips at different peak polarization levels and different frequencies

Frequenza e fenotipo delle mutazioni GJB2 in pazienti con ipoacusia neurosensoriale non-sindromica congenita: analisi di una coorte della Sicilia Occidentale

Circa il 60% delle ipoacusie congenite sono associate a cause genetiche nei paesi sviluppati. La sordit\ue0 genetica \ue8 classificata in sindromica (30%) e non sindromica (70%), quest\u2019ultima riconducibile in pi\uf9 del 50% dei casi a mutazioni del gene GJB2. Tale gene, espresso nella coclea, codifica per la proteina gap junction \u201cConnessina 26\u201d, la cui funzione \ue8 cruciale per la comunicazione intercellulare. L\u2019obiettivo del nostro lavoro \ue8 stato quello di stimare la frequenza delle mutazioni GJB2 e la loro correlazione con il fenotipo audiologico in 102 pazienti siciliani affetti da sordit\ue0 neurosensoriale congenita non sindromica (NSHL) bilaterale e portatori di almeno una mutazione del gene GJB2. Tutti i soggetti sono stati sottoposti a test genetici (per individuare la presenza di mutazioni dei geni GJB2 e GJB6) ed esame audio-impedenzometrico. Nella coorte studiata sono stati identificati 15 mutazioni differenti e 17 genotipi. Nel 64.72% dei pazienti si \ue8 evidenziata una perdita uditiva di grado profondo (media PTA0.25-4kHz= 88.82\ub126.52 dB HL ). L\u201981.37% dei soggetti \ue8 risultato portatore di almeno un allele c.35delG; le mutazioni c.167delT e c.-23+1G&gt;A sono state identificate nel 10.78% e nel 9.8% dei pazienti rispettivamente. Il genotipo omozigote per la mutazione c.35delG \ue8 risultato associato ad una pi\uf9 severa perdita uditiva e a valori medi di PTA0.25-4kHz pi\uf9 elevati (96.79\ub121.11 dB HL) rispetto ai genotipi c.35delG/non-c.35delG e c.35delG/Wt (P&lt;0.05) Il nostro studio evidenzia il ruolo di c.35delG, c.167delT e c.-23+1G&gt;A come cause principali di NSHL in Sicilia. La variabilit\ue0 del profilo audiologico associato ad un determinato genotipo \ue8 riconducibile all\u2019azione di geni e fattori ambientali in parte non ancora individuati

Wideband magnetic losses and their interpretation in HGO steel sheets

The magnetic properties of high-permeability grain-oriented (HGO) Fe-Si sheets have been investigated in the frequency range 1 Hz-10 kHz, with attention devoted to the role of thickness on the behavior of the magnetic losses and the phenomenology of skin effect. The study is focused on the wideband response of 0.174 mm and 0.289 mm thick sheets, comparatively tested at peak polarization values ranging between 0.25 T and 1.7 T. The experiments associate fluxmetric measurements with direct Kerr observations of the dynamics of the domain walls. A picture of the magnetization process comes to light, where the dynamics of the flux reversal takes hold under increasing frequencies through the motion of increasingly bowed 180 degrees walls, eventually merging at the sheet surface for a fraction of the semi-period. This effect can be consistently predicted, starting from the Kerrbased knowledge of the equilibrium wall spacing, by the numerical modeling of the motion of an extended array of 180 degrees domain walls, subjected to the balanced action of the applied and eddy current fields, and the elastic reaction of the bowed walls. This model can be incorporated into the general concept of loss separation, by calculating the classical loss component through the solution of the Maxwell's diffusion equation under a magnetic constitutive law identified with the normal DC curve. The numerical domain wall model and the loss decomposition consistently predict that the excess loss component, playing a major role in these grain-oriented materials at power frequencies, tends to disappear in the upper induction-frequency corner

Black holes in supergravity and integrability

Stationary black holes of massless supergravity theories are described by certain geodesic curves on the target space that is obtained after dimensional reduction over time. When the target space is a symmetric coset space we make use of the group-theoretical structure to prove that the second order geodesic equations are integrable in the sense of Liouville, by explicitly constructing the correct amount of Hamiltonians in involution. This implies that the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism can be applied, which proves that all such black hole solutions, including non-extremal solutions, possess a description in terms of a (fake) superpotential. Furthermore, we improve the existing integration method by the construction of a Lax integration algorithm that integrates the second order equations in one step instead of the usual two step procedure. We illustrate this technology with a specific example.Comment: 44 pages, small typos correcte

UPPER RESPIRATORY TRACT INFECTIONS IN CHILDREN: FROM CASE HISTORY TO MANAGEMENT

Respiratory tract infections are the most common diseases in childhood. The respiratory tract, widely branched system of ducts, is particularly exposed to the action of microorganisms transmitted by air from here the high frequency of infections they face especially in the first years of life. It is usual distinguish: upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI). In particular, in infections of the upper airways, the inflammatory process, result of the interaction between microbes and the immune response, can be localized to the mucosa of the nose or sinuses (common cold and sinusitis), or the pharynx or larynx (pharyngotonsillitis and laryngitis) and it has predominantly a viral etiology although occasionally it may be followed by bacterial complications such as otitis media. The aim of the following article is the description of these different clinical pictures, highlighting the clinical and epidemiological features and current management guidelines

Tracing the footprints of SARS-CoV-2 in oceanic waters

The detection of SARS-CoV-2 in water environments has predominantly focused on wastewater, neglecting its presence in oceanic waters. This study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in remote sea and oceanic waters, at large distances from the coastline. Forty-three 500-liter samples were collected between May 2022 and January 2023 from the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arctic region, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Using molecular detection methods including real-time RT-qPCR and nested PCR followed by sequencing, we successfully detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA in 7 of the 43 marine water samples (16.3&nbsp;%), and specifically in samples taken from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The estimated concentrations of SARS-CoV-2&nbsp;genome copies in the positive samples ranged from 6 to 470 per 100&nbsp;l. The presence of mutations characteristic of the Omicron variant was identified in these samples by amplicon sequencing. These findings provide evidence of the unforeseen presence of SARS-CoV-2 in marine waters even at distances of miles from the coastline and in open ocean waters. It is important to consider that these findings only display the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA, and further investigations are required to assess if infectious virus can be present in the marine environment

False Vacuum Inflation with Einstein Gravity

We investigate chaotic inflation models with two scalar fields, such that one field (the inflaton) rolls while the other is trapped in a false vacuum state. The false vacuum becomes unstable when the inflaton field falls below some critical value, and a first or second order transition to the true vacuum ensues. Particular attention is paid to Linde's second-order `Hybrid Inflation'; with the false vacuum dominating, inflation differs from the usual true vacuum case both in its cosmology and in its relation to particle physics. The spectral index of the adiabatic density perturbation can be very close to 1, or it can be around ten percent higher. The energy scale at the end of inflation can be anywhere between $10^{16}$\,GeV and $10^{11}$\,GeV, though reheating is prompt so the reheat temperature can't be far below $10^{11}\,$GeV. Topological defects are almost inevitably produced at the end of inflation, and if the inflationary energy scale is near its upper limit they can have significant effects. Because false vacuum inflation occurs with the inflaton field far below the Planck scale, it is easier to implement in the context of supergravity than standard chaotic inflation. That the inflaton mass is small compared with the inflationary Hubble parameter is still a problem for generic supergravity theories, but remarkably this can be avoided in a natural way for a class of supergravity models which follow from orbifold compactification of superstrings. This opens up the prospect of a truly realistic, superstringComment: 37 pages, LaTeX (3 figures available as hard copies only), SUSSEX-AST 94/1-