The professional skills of the nurse involved in the care of individuals with sexually transmitted infections

INTRODUCTION: Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) represent a relevant public health issue that requires the combined contribution of different health care professionals in order to put in place proper prevention, diagnosis and treatment activities  METHODS: The Integrated health care model (PIC) is here applied to STIs. Designed as a territorial network of services including a multidisciplinary team of health care workers, this model works across a number of settings and levels of care. The specific contribution of the nurse with an adequate technical-scientific and relational communication background in STI care provision is analyzed.  RESULTS: Nurses and other Health Care Workers involved in the PIC for STIs are able to respond in a tailored manner to the various health needs of the person. The technical-scientific and relational communication competencies ensure the delivery of quality services. Moreover, nursing care should be STIs person-centred and used for to improve empowerment and healthy behaviors. Appropriate nursing staff education and training aimed at integrating technical-scientific knowledge with relational communication skills on STIs is highly desiderable.  CONCLUSIONS: Nurses area a crucial component in the PIC for STIs, because they are engaged in the care of a complex, delicate and intimate component of the individual. Therefore, to improve service performance, an improvement and extension of nurses duties in STI centers would be highly desirable. Standardized care protocols established by the local Health Department could be used as direction as well as an updating of the current Italian legislation which does not allow to adapt nursing competencies to the real care requirements.  KEYWORDS: sexually transmitted infections, Italy, nurses, integrated care, training, health communication.INTRODUZIONE: Le Infezioni Sessualmente Trasmesse (IST) rappresentano a livello nazionale un importante problema di sanità pubblica che richiede interventi di prevenzione, diagnosi e cura condotti attraverso la collaborazione integrata di professionisti sanitari differenti.  METODI: È stato utilizzato il modello di Percorso Integrato di Cura (PIC) applicandolo alle IST, inteso come rete territoriale che prevede il coordinamento tra le diverse strutture sanitarie e tra i vari operatori sanitari coinvolti in questa specifica area. In tale ambito è stato analizzato il possibile contributo che il professionista infermiere, con un bagaglio tecnico-scientifico e comunicativo-relazionale adeguato, può fornire alla persona direttamente o indirettamente coinvolta in una IST.  RISULTATI: La conduzione di un intervento infermieristico professionale all’interno del PIC per le IST, ovviamente integrato con quello di altre figure professionali, intende rispondere in modo personalizzato ai diversi bisogni di salute espressi dalla persona. Inoltre, mira a promuovere nella persona con IST l’attivazione di processi di empowerment fondamentali per la messa in atto di stili comportamentali adeguati. Emerge, pertanto, l’esigenza di proporre al personale infermieristico un percorso di formazione/aggiornamento finalizzato all’integrazione delle conoscenze tecnico-scientifiche con quelle comunicativo-relazionali in tema di IST.  CONCLUSIONI: Il ruolo dell’infermiere costituisce un elemento cruciale all’interno di un PIC per le IST in quanto impegnato in un’area complessa e delicata che tocca la sfera più intima della persona coinvolgendola nella sua globalità. Appare, pertanto, fortemente auspicabile un ampliamento delle competenze dell’infermiere attraverso, prima, una elaborazione di protocolli aziendali standardizzati stabiliti dalla Direzione Sanitaria in cui opera il professionista infermiere, e successivamente un superamento della normativa vigente che ad oggi non consente di adeguare le competenze infermieristiche alle reali esigenze assistenziali.  PAROLE CHIAVE: infezioni sessualmente trasmesse, Italia, infermiere, percorso di cura integrato, formazione, epidemiologia, comunicazione&nbsp

Exploring Dress, Gender, and Bodily Capital through Pre- and Protohistoric Funerary Contexts: Case Studies from Southwestern Europe

While uneven in their scope and reach, studies of dress and dress complements (fibulae, belt buckles, buttons, etc.) have a significant tradition within the broader study of the pre- and protohistory of Mediterranean Europe. Many of these studies, however, have had a strong focus on the typology of the dress complements and ornaments themselves, either as chronological indicators, ethnic markers, or both. In more recent years, however, a shift in research agendas has ushered in the introduction of new perspectives and new ways of thinking about dress and bodily adornment. This contribution explores one such perspective in particular — namely, the concept of bodily capital and its application to the interpretation of gendered regimes of dress — through selected case studies. Said case studies hail from two areas with strong traditions of research on dress and dress complements — the Iberian and the Italic Peninsulas (Figs. 1 & 2). Regarding the former, examples from the Chalcolithic (see below, section 3.1.1) and the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of Southern Portugal (section 3.1.2) illustrate the evolution of regional regimes for the accumulation of bodily capital over time and show how these can highlight the gendered dynamics behind the sociopolitical development of communities in this area between the 3rd and the 1st millennia BC. For the latter, the examples of protohistoric Campania, with a focus on Pontecagnano and its surrounding area (section 3.2.1), and the Archaic Period in the Picenum, with a focus on the site of Numana (section 3.2.2), illustrate the role of dress, and especially female dress, in displays of bodily capital. These have far-reaching implications which go beyond the local and regional scale and must be set against the backdrop of the increasing connectivity of Mediterranean communities throughout the 1st millennium BC. As will be seen, all these case studies offer insights and clues on how to approach dress and its relationship to both embodied identities and lived experiences of gender (but also status) from different and innovative angles. Before delving into them, however, it seems useful to start by briefly reviewing the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to dress in archaeological research, and to set out the conceptual framework of this study by briefly discussing the notion of bodily capital, its origin and potential applications for the topic at hand

Landslides Induced by Historical and Recent Earthquakes in Central-Southern Apennines (Italy): A Tool for Intensity Assessment and Seismic Hazard

Analysis of distribution of landslides (rock falls and coherent slides), induced by 12 moderate to strong earthquakes occurred in the last three centuries in Central\u2013Southern Apennines, has permitted to investigate the relationship of their maximum distance versus magnitude and ESI epicentral intensity. For coherent slides, the correlation of magnitude or ESI intensity versus distance is fairly good and consistent with global datasets. Instead, rock falls show a less evident correlation with distance. We stress here the usefulness of such relationships to define the expected scenario of earthquake-induced landslides. However, the data base needs to be improved and enlarged to allow more robust estimates

Understanding the Biological Significance of Anti-DFS70 Antibodies: Effect of Biologic Therapies on Their Occurrence in Inflammatory Arthritis

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Effect of carbocisteine in prevention of exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (CAPRI study): an observational study

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a chronic and progressive lung disease characterized by irreversible airflow obstruction, airway inflammation , oxidative stress and, often, mucus hypersecretion. The aim of thisstudy is to determine if carbocisteine, a mucolytic and antioxidant agent, administered daily for 12 months, can reduce exacerbation frequency in COPD patients

On Modeling Speed-based Vertical Handovers in Vehicular Networks "Dad, slow down, I am watching the movie"

Although vehicular ad hoc networks are emerging as a novel paradigm for safety services, supporting real-time applications (e.g., video-streaming, Internet browsing, online gaming, etc.) while maintaining ubiquitous connectivity remains a challenge due to both high vehicle speed, and non-homogeneous nature of the network access infrastructure. To guarantee acceptable Quality-of-Service and to support seamless connectivity, vertical handovers across different access networks are performed. In this work we prove the counterintuitive result that in vehicular environments, even if a candidate network has significantly higher bandwidth, it is not always beneficial to abandon the serving network. To this end, we introduce an analytical model for a vertical handover algorithm based on vehicle speed. We argue that the proposed approach may help providers incentivize safety by forcing vehicular speed reduction to guarantee acceptable Quality-of-Service for real-time applications

Menin uncouples Elk-1, JunD and c-Jun phosphorylation from MAP kinase activation

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An NMR Study of the Bortezomib Degradation under Clinical Use Conditions

The (R)-3-methyl-1-((S)-3-phenyl-2-(pyrazine-2-carboxamido)propanamido)butyl-boronic acid, bortezomib (BTZ), which binds the 20S proteasome subunit and causes a large inhibition of its activity, is a peptidomimetic boronic drug mainly used for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Commercial BTZ, stabilized as mannitol derivative, has been investigated under the common conditions of the clinical use because it is suspected to be easily degradable in the region of its boronic moiety. Commercial BTZ samples, reconstituted according to the reported commercial instructions and stored at 4°C, were analyzed by high-field nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in comparison with identical samples bubbled with air and argon, respectively. All the samples remained unchanged for a week. After a month, the air filled samples showed the presence of two main degradation products (6% of starting material), the N-(1-(1-hydroxy-3-methylbutylamino)-1-oxo-3-phenylpropan-2-yl) pyrazine-2-carboxamide (BTZ1; 5%, determined from NMR integration) and the (S)-N-(1-(3-methylbutanamido)-1-oxo-3-phenylpropan-2-yl)pyrazine-2-carboxamide (BTZ2; 1%, determined from NMR integration), identified on the basis of their chemical and spectroscopic properties. The BTZ1 and BTZ2 finding suggests that, under the common condition of use and at 4°C, commercial BTZ-mannitol is stable for a week, and that, in time, it undergoes slow oxidative deboronation which partially inactivates the product. Low temperature and scarce contact with air decrease the degradation process

Cracking the Code of Human Diseases Using Next-Generation Sequencing: Applications, Challenges, and Perspectives

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have greatly impacted on every field of molecular research mainly because they reduce costs and increase throughput of DNA sequencing. These features, together with the technology's flexibility, have opened the way to a variety of applications including the study of the molecular basis of human diseases. Several analytical approaches have been developed to selectively enrich regions of interest from the whole genome in order to identify germinal and/or somatic sequence variants and to study DNA methylation. These approaches are now widely used in research, and they are already being used in routine molecular diagnostics. However, some issues are still controversial, namely, standardization of methods, data analysis and storage, and ethical aspects. Besides providing an overview of the NGS-based approaches most frequently used to study the molecular basis of human diseases at DNA level, we discuss the principal challenges and applications of NGS in the field of human genomics

Endophytic Bacteria Associated with Origanum heracleoticum L. (Lamiaceae) Seeds

Seed-associated microbiota are believed to play a crucial role in seed germination, seedling establishment, and plant growth and fitness stimulation, due to the vertical transmission of a core microbiota from seeds to the next generations. It might be hypothesized that medicinal and aromatic plants could use the seeds as vectors to vertically transfer beneficial endophytes, providing plants with metabolic pathways that could influence phytochemicals production. Here, we investigated the localization, the structure and the composition of the bacterial endophytic population that resides in Origanum heracleoticum L. seeds. Endocellular bacteria, surrounded by a wall, were localized close to the aleurone layer when using light and transmission electron microscopy. From surface-sterilized seeds, cultivable endophytes were isolated and characterized through RAPD analysis and 16S RNA gene sequencing, which revealed the existence of a high degree of biodiversity at the strain level and the predominance of the genus Pseudomonas. Most of the isolates grew in the presence of six selected antibiotics and were able to inhibit the growth of clinical and environmental strains that belong to the Burkholderia cepacia complex. The endophytes production of antimicrobial compounds could suggest their involvement in plant secondary metabolites production and might pave the way to endophytes exploitation in the pharmaceutical field