Differential neuropsychological profiles in Parkinsonian patients with or without vascular lesions.

The purpose of this study is to compare the neuropsychological profile of patients affected by parkinsonism and vascular lesions to that in patients with PD alone (PD) and to evaluate whether the brain vascular lesion load is associated with neuropsychological variables. Thirty-six nondemented patients with parkinsonism were divided into 3 groups of 12 patients each, according to both clinical history and the presence of brain vascular lesions and/or dopaminergic denervation as revealed by magnetic resonance and dopamine transporter imaging, respectively. The first group had vascular lesions without dopaminergic denervation (VP group); the second group had vascular lesions and dopaminergic denervation (DD) (VP+DD group); and the third group consisted of patients with dopaminergic denervation (PD group) without vascular lesions. All patients underwent neurological and neuropsychological assessments. The groups differed in disease duration, age at onset, and cerebrovascular risk factors. The VP and VP+DD groups performed worse than the PD group on frontal/executive tasks. Regardless of the presence of dopaminergic denervation, cerebrovascular lesions in hemispheric white matter, basal ganglia, and cerebellum have an important effect in determining early onset and severity of cognitive impairment in patients with parkinsonism

Are the next-generation households ready for the energy transition? A survey on their positioning and practice with energy management tools

In the last decades, significant effort has been put towards technological advancement in housing for energy transition. Massive retrofitting actions have been called for, and innovative technologies for smart energy management at home have been deployed. However, undesired energy trends in housing suggest that relevant factors have been neglected. Among these, increasing importance is now given to occupants' behaviour, and their capacity to interact with energy management devices available in dwellings. This study investigates what is the position of next-generation users on energy transition at home. Two years ago, the authors launched a survey to explore people's awareness of energy use practices, interaction with metering devices, and user motivation to change when informed. As a pilot survey, over 300 people from the academy were involved to see what was the position of a sample which was supposed to be informed more than the average, in Italy. The test yielded early outcomes on how people become more interested to change as they gain knowledge and are offered suggestions. Despite the expectations, the sample's level of awareness was low. This suggested that a more user-centred approach is needed for wide-scale progress. Especially results from the youngest were below prospects. The questionnaire was relaunched to examine if the pandemic, energy crisis and latest news on climate change have affected positions of the youngsters. A testing session involving university students was performed, and results have been compared with the previous. As a result, reflections on the energy use patterns of the next-generation households are provided

Laparoscopic Treatment of Bouveret's Syndrome Presenting as Acute Pancreatitis

Gastric outlet obstruction as a result of gallstone (Bouveret's syndrome) is a rare but serious complication of cholelithiasis. Although patients present with persistent vomiting, colicky epigastric pain and dehydration, the clinical features of the Bouveret's syndrome are not pathognomonic. Due to its rarity, the diagnosis and treatment represent a challenge for the surgeon. In most of the reported cases, the diagnosis was made at the time of laparotomy. We report an unusual clinical presentation of Bouveret's syndrome with mild acute pancreatitis that was treated laparoscopically. To our knowledge, this is the first described case. Cause, clinical presentation, methods of diagnosis, and options for management of Bouveret's syndrome are also discussed

The stripping of a galaxy group diving into the massive cluster A2142

Structure formation in the current Universe operates through the accretion of group-scale systems onto massive clusters. The detection and study of such accreting systems is crucial to understand the build-up of the most massive virialized structures we see today. We report the discovery with XMM-Newton of an irregular X-ray substructure in the outskirts of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2142. The tip of the X-ray emission coincides with a concentration of galaxies. The bulk of the X-ray emission of this substructure appears to be lagging behind the galaxies and extends over a projected scale of at least 800 kpc. The temperature of the gas in this region is 1.4 keV, which is a factor of ~4 lower than the surrounding medium and is typical of the virialized plasma of a galaxy group with a mass of a few 10^13M_sun. For this reason, we interpret this structure as a galaxy group in the process of being accreted onto the main dark-matter halo. The X-ray structure trailing behind the group is due to gas stripped from its original dark-matter halo as it moves through the intracluster medium (ICM). This is the longest X-ray trail reported to date. For an infall velocity of ~1,200 km s-1 we estimate that the stripped gas has been surviving in the presence of the hot ICM for at least 600 Myr, which exceeds the Spitzer conduction timescale in the medium by a factor of >~400. Such a strong suppression of conductivity is likely related to a tangled magnetic field with small coherence length and to plasma microinstabilities. The long survival time of the low-entropy intragroup medium suggests that the infalling material can eventually settle within the core of the main cluster.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Colloidal CuFeS2 Nanocrystals: Intermediate Fe d-Band Leads to High Photothermal Conversion Efficiency

We describe the colloidal hot-injection synthesis of phase-pure nanocrystals (NCs) of a highly abundant mineral, chalcopyrite (CuFeS2). Absorption bands centered at around 480 and 950 nm, spanning almost the entire visible and near infrared regions, encompass their optical extinction characteristics. These peaks are ascribable to electronic transitions from the valence band (VB) to the empty intermediate band (IB), located in the fundamental gap and mainly composed of Fe 3d orbitals. Laser-irradiation (at 808 nm) of an aqueous suspension of CuFeS2 NCs exhibited significant heating, with a photothermal conversion efficiency of 49%. Such efficient heating is ascribable to the carrier relaxation within the broad IB band (owing to the indirect VB-IB gap), as corroborated by transient absorption measurements. The intense absorption and high photothermal transduction efficiency (PTE) of these NCs in the so-called biological window (650-900 nm) makes them suitable for photothermal therapy as demonstrated by tumor cell annihilation upon laser irradiation. The otherwise harmless nature of these NCs in dark conditions was confirmed by in vitro toxicity tests on two different cell lines. The presence of the deep Fe levels constituting the IB is the origin of such enhanced PTE, which can be used to design other high performing NC photothermal agents.Comment: 12 pages, Chemistry of Materials, 31-May-201