Negative symptoms as key features of depression among cannabis users: a preliminary report.

OBJECTIVE: Cannabis use is frequent among depressed patients and may lead to the so-called "amotivational syndrome", which combines symptoms of affective flattening and loss of emotional reactivity (i.e. the so-called "negative" symptomatology). The aim of this study was to investigate the negative symptomatology in depressed patients with concomitant cannabis use disorders (CUDs) in comparison with depressed patients without CUDs. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Fifty-one patients with a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and concomitant CUD and fifty-one MDD patients were enrolled in the study. The 21-Item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and the negative symptoms subscales of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) were used to assess depressive and negative symptomatology. RESULTS: Patients with cannabis use disorders presented significantly more severe negative symptoms in comparison with patients without cannabis use (15.18 ± 2.25 vs 13.75 ± 2.44; t100 = 3.25 p = 0.002). DISCUSSION: A deeper knowledge of the "negative" psychopathological profile of MDD patients who use cannabis may lead to novel etiopathogenetic models of MDD and to more appropriate treatment approaches

The “Eyeballing” technique : an emerging and alerting trend of alcohol misuse

Alternative methods of alcohol consumption have recently emerged among adolescents and young adults, including the alcohol “eyeballing”, which consist in the direct pouring of alcoholic substances on the ocular surface epithelium. In a context of drug and behavioural addictions change, “eyeballing” can be seen as one of the latest and potentially highly risky new trends. We aimed to analyze the existing medical literature as well as online material on this emerging trend of alcohol misusePeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Nonlinear Bivariate Comovements of Asset Prices: Theory and Tests

Comovements among asset prices have received a lot of attention for several reasons. For example, comovements are important in cross-hedging and cross-speculation; they determine capital allocation both domestically and in international mean-variance portfolios and also, they are useful in investigating the extent of integration among financial markets. In this paper we propose a new methodology for the non-linear modelling of bivariate comovements. Our approach extends the ones presented in the recent literature. In fact, our methodology, outlined in three steps, allows the evaluation and the statistical testing of non-linearly driven comovements between two given random variables. Moreover, when such a bivariate dependence relationship is detected, our approach creates a polynomial approximation. We illustrate our three-step methodology to the time series of energy related asset prices. Finally, we exploit this dependence relationship and its polynomial approximation to obtain analytical approximations of the Greeks for the European call and put options in terms of an asset whose price comoves with the price of the underlying asset

L'area delle risorgive nel sistema insediativo mesolitico: alcuni esempi dal pordenonese

The authors present the work undertaken on the lithic material collected in the spring area between Orcenico Superiore and Savorgnano (Pordenone-Italy). The sites are located on an NE-SW elongated Lateglacial gravel ridge, which to the present day is to be considered a stable area (i.e. preserved from alluvial and erosive action of Tagliamento and Meduna rivers). Different periods are represented in the lithic industries, spanning from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. This paper presents the results of the study carried out on the Mesolithic industries, mainly to be ascribed to the Castelnovian tradition. The typological composition of the assemblages shows different activities which could be associated with residential camps, without any particular specialization although this kind of interpretation could be biased by the non systematic nature of the findings. Different operational chains were in place, aiming to produce either bladelets or flakes. Raw materials are mostly of local origin, although few pieces were brought in from the Prealps, showing a North-South mobility along river routes. At the same time, there are scarce lithic materials imported from the upper part of the Udine plain, which is rich in good quality flint pebbles. Further technological and typological differences show a rather neat separation between sites on either sides of Tagliamento river. When we consider the distribution of Mesolithic sites in Friuli, a logistical settlement system seems to emerge: bigger sites are located at the edge of ecologically differentiated areas in connection with stable water sources such as the spring area between Orcenico and S. Vito al Tagliamento and the piedmont; complementary to those, task-related short-term sites characterised by less materials and fewer lithic types are found in the Prealps at middle altitude

Handover procedures in integrated satellite and terrestrial mobile systems

The integration of satellite and terrestrial mobile systems is investigated in terms of the strategies for handover across the integrated cellular coverage. The handover procedure is subdivided into an initialization phase, where the need for issuing a handover request must be identified, and an execution phase, where the request must be satisfied, if possible, according to a certain channel assignment strategy. A modeling approach that allows the design of the parameters that influence the performance of the overall handover procedure is presented, along with a few numerical results

Bipolar polaron pair recombination in P3HT/PCBM solar cells

The unique properties of organic semiconductors make them versatile base materials for many applications ranging from light emitting diodes to transistors. The low spin-orbit coupling typical for carbon-based materials and the resulting long spin lifetimes give rise to a large influence of the electron spin on charge transport which can be exploited in spintronic devices or to improve solar cell efficiencies. Magnetic resonance techniques are particularly helpful to elucidate the microscopic structure of paramagnetic states in semiconductors as well as the transport processes they are involved in. However, in organic devices the nature of the dominant spin-dependent processes is still subject to considerable debate. Using multi-frequency pulsed electrically detected magnetic resonance (pEDMR), we show that the spin-dependent response of P3HT/PCBM solar cells at low temperatures is governed by bipolar polaron pair recombination involving the positive and negative polarons in P3HT and PCBM, respectively, thus excluding a unipolar bipolaron formation as the main contribution to the spin-dependent charge transfer in this temperature regime. Moreover the polaron-polaron coupling strength and the recombination times of polaron pairs with parallel and antiparallel spins are determined. Our results demonstrate that the pEDMR pulse sequences recently developed for inorganic semiconductor devices can very successfully be transferred to the study of spin and charge transport in organic semiconductors, in particular when the different polarons can be distinguished spectrally

MARKERLESS ANALYSIS OF SWIMMERS’ MOTION: A PILOT STUDY

Regular laboratory-based motion analysis with skin surface markers is not always feasible. In particular, when studying swimmers kinematics, traditional motion capture techniques cannot be adopted. Although video recordings from swimmers often exist, current methods for biomechanical analysis of these are inadequate. They usually rely on manual digitization of joints’ position on a single sagittal view of the subject. Therefore, in this study a method for three dimensional (3D) markerless motion capture of swimmers is presented. The method adopts the markerless motion capture system developed at Stanford University

The diffusion of Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs (PIEDs) on the internet : The abuse of the cognitive enhancer Piracetam

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Substance Use & Miuse on December 2014, available online at: https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2014.912232Introduction: Performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIEDs), also known as “lifestyle drugs,” are increasingly sold on the Internet to enhance cognitive as well as sexual, muscular, attentive, and other natural capacities. Our analysis focuses on the misuse of the cognitive enhancer piracetam. Methods: A literature review was carried out in PsychInfo and Pubmed database. Considering the absence of peer-reviewed data, review of additional sources of unstructured information from the Internet was carried out between February 2012 and July 2013. Additional searches were conducted using the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), a secure Internet-based early warning system developed by Health Canada and the World Health Organization (WHO), which monitors media reports in six languages, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Results: Piracetam is sold via illicit online pharmacies with no need of prescription at low prices. Buyers, mainly healthy individuals, purchase the product to enhance study- and work-related performances as well as for recreational purposes. Its nonmedical use is often associated with the occurrence of side effects such as hallucinations, psychomotor agitation, dysphoria, tiredness, dizziness, memory loss, headache, and severe diarrhoea; moreover, several users declared to have neither felt any cognitive improvement nor psychedelic effects. Conclusions: This is a new and fast-growing trend of abuse that needs to be extensively monitored and studied also by using near real-time and unstructured sources of information such as Internet news and online reports in order to acquire rapid knowledge and understanding. Products sold online might be counterfeits and this enhances related health risksPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

What inspires us? An experimental analysis of the semantic meaning of irrelevant information in creative ideation

Past research showed that apparently irrelevant information for a creative task at hand can lead to higher creative performance, especially in open-minded individuals. Through two diverse experimental procedures, the present work investigated which type of irrelevance information can inspire (i.e., increase) the creative performance during a divergent thinking (DT) task and how open-minded individuals can be inspired by this kind of information. In Experiment 1, the attentional processing of information that was either apparently relevant or irrelevant for the execution of a verbal DT task was assessed by means of an eye-tracking methodology. In Experiment 2, creative performance was explored through a verbal priming paradigm, which forcedly introduced apparently irrelevant information during the DT task. In both experiments, the level of irrelevance was operationalized in terms of semantic distance between the different kind of information. Results from both experiments highlighted the role of the semantic meaning of the irrelevant information as one of the main determinants, along with Openness, of inspiration (i.e., enhancement) of the creative performance

An Italian prospective multicenter survey on patients suspected of having non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

BACKGROUND: Non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is still an undefined syndrome with several unsettled issues despite the increasing awareness of its existence. We carried out a prospective survey on NCGS in Italian centers for the diagnosis of gluten-related disorders, with the aim of defining the clinical picture of this new syndrome and to establish roughly its prevalence compared with celiac disease. METHODS: From November 2012 to October 2013, 38 Italian centers (27 adult gastroenterology, 5 internal medicine, 4 pediatrics, and 2 allergy) participated in this prospective survey. A questionnaire was used in order to allow uniform and accurate collection of clinical, biochemical, and instrumental data. RESULTS: In total, 486 patients with suspected NCGS were identified in this 1-year period. The female/male ratio was 5.4 to 1, and the mean age was 38 years (range 3–81). The clinical picture was characterized by combined gastrointestinal (abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation, nausea, epigastric pain, gastroesophageal reflux, aphthous stomatitis) and systemic manifestations (tiredness, headache, fibromyalgia-like joint/muscle pain, leg or arm numbness, 'foggy mind,' dermatitis or skin rash, depression, anxiety, and anemia). In the large majority of patients, the time lapse between gluten ingestion and the appearance of symptoms varied from a few hours to 1 day. The most frequent associated disorders were irritable bowel syndrome (47%), food intolerance (35%) and IgE-mediated allergy (22%). An associated autoimmune disease was detected in 14% of cases. Regarding family history, 18% of our patients had a relative with celiac disease, but no correlation was found between NCGS and positivity for HLA-DQ2/-DQ8. IgG anti-gliadin antibodies were detected in 25% of the patients tested. Only a proportion of patients underwent duodenal biopsy; for those that did, the biopsies showed normal intestinal mucosa (69%) or mild increase in intraepithelial lymphocytes (31%). The ratio between suspected NCGS and new CD diagnoses, assessed in 28 of the participating centers, was 1.15 to 1. CONCLUSIONS: This prospective survey shows that NCGS has a strong correlation with female gender and adult age. Based on our results, the prevalence of NCGS seems to be only slightly higher than that of celiac disease. Please see related article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/86