Immunogenicity of viral vaccines in the italian military

Military personnel of all armed forces receive multiple vaccinations and have been doing so since long ago, but relatively few studies have investigated the possible negative or positive interference of simultaneous vaccinations. As a contribution to fill this gap, we analyzed the response to the live trivalent measles/mumps/rubella (MMR), the inactivated hepatitis A virus (HAV), the inactivated trivalent polio, and the trivalent subunits influenza vaccines in two cohorts of Italian military personnel. The first cohort was represented by 108 students from military schools and the second by 72 soldiers engaged in a nine-month mission abroad. MMR and HAV vaccines had never been administered before, whereas inactivated polio was administered to adults primed at infancy with a live trivalent oral polio vaccine. Accordingly, nearly all subjects had baseline antibodies to polio types 1 and 3, but unexpectedly, anti-measles/-mumps/-rubella antibodies were present in 82%, 82%, and 73.5% of subjects, respectively (43% for all of the antigens). Finally, anti-HAV antibodies were detectable in 14% and anti-influenza (H1/H3/B) in 18% of the study population. At mine months post-vaccination, 92% of subjects had protective antibody levels for all MMR antigens, 96% for HAV, 69% for the three influenza antigens, and 100% for polio types 1 and 3. An inverse relationship between baseline and post-vaccination antibody levels was noticed with all the vaccines. An excellent vaccine immunogenicity, a calculated long antibody persistence, and apparent lack of vaccine interference were observed

A case of dengue type 3 virus infection imported from Africa to Italy, October 2009.

In October 2009, a traveller returning from Africa to Italy was hospitalised with symptoms suggestive of a haemorrhagic fever of unknown origin. The patient was immediately placed in a special biocontainment unit until laboratory investigations confirmed the infection to be caused by a dengue serotype 3 virus. This case reasserts the importance of returning travellers as sentinels of unknown outbreaks occurring in other countries, and highlights how the initial symptoms of dengue fever resemble those of other haemorrhagic fevers, hence the importance of prompt isolation of patients until a final diagnosis is reached

Aortic stiffness is associated with cardiac function and cerebral small vessel disease in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus: assessment by magnetic resonance imaging

To evaluate, with the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), whether aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is associated with cardiac left ventricular (LV) function and mass as well as with cerebral small vessel disease in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). We included 86 consecutive type 1 DM patients (49 male, mean age 46.9 +/- 11.7 years) in a prospective, cross-sectional study. Exclusion criteria included aortic/heart disease and general MRI contra-indications. MRI of the aorta, heart and brain was performed for assessment of aortic PWV, as a marker of aortic stiffness, systolic LV function and mass, as well as for the presence of cerebral white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), microbleeds and lacunar infarcts. Multivariate linear or logistic regression was performed to analyse the association between aortic PWV and outcome parameters, with covariates defined as age, gender, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, BMI, smoking, DM duration and hypertension. Mean aortic PWV was 7.1 +/- 2.5 m/s. Aortic PWV was independently associated with LV ejection fraction ( = -0.406, P = 0.006), LV stroke volume ( = -0.407, P = 0.001), LV cardiac output ( = -0.458, P = 0.001), and with cerebral WMHs (P < 0.05). There were no independent associations between aortic stiffness and LV mass, cerebral microbleeds or lacunar infarcts. Aortic stiffness is independently associated with systolic LV function and cerebral WMHs in patients with type 1 DM.Neuro Imaging Researc

3D MODELLING BY LOW-COST RANGE CAMERA: SOFTWARE EVALUATION AND COMPARISON

The aim of this work is to present a comparison among three software applications currently available for the Occipital Structure SensorTM; all these software were developed for collecting 3D models of objects easily and in real-time with this structured light range camera. The SKANECT, itSeez3D and Scanner applications were thus tested: a DUPLOTM bricks construction was scanned with the three applications and the obtained models were compared to the model virtually generated with a standard CAD software, which served as reference. The results demonstrate that all the software applications are generally characterized by the same level of geometric accuracy, which amounts to very few millimetres. However, the itSeez3D software, which requires a payment of $7 to export each model, represents surely the best solution, both from the point of view of the geometric accuracy and, mostly, at the level of the color restitution. On the other hand, Scanner, which is a free software, presents an accuracy comparable to that of itSeez3D. At the same time, though, the colors are often smoothed and not perfectly overlapped to the corresponding part of the model. Lastly, SKANECT is the software that generates the highest number of points, but it has also some issues with the rendering of the colors

Percorso nella vita quotidiana di un insediamento iapigio del IV sec. a.C.

Il Parco archeologico di Monte Sannace (Gioia del Colle-Bari) custodisce il più importante sito indigeno della Peucezia preromana per complessità e ampiezza della parte dell’abitato fruibile al visitatore. Le ampie testimonianze materiali emerse in decenni di scavi hanno dato vita all’idea di un progetto che conduca il visitatore in tappe esemplificative di aspetti salienti della vita quotidiana in un insediamento indigeno di età ellenistica con l'obiettivo della valorizzare del bene archeologico attraverso un processo che ne favorisca la conoscenza e il godimento-fruizione da parte del grande pubblico. Si propone pertanto un progetto di musealizzazione del sito attraverso un allestimento temporaneo fondato sul racconto e la viva esperienza delle principali pratiche individuali e collettive svolte nel villaggio nel IV secolo a.C

Orthoimage Generation by GÖKTÜRK-1: A Test Case in Rome

The paper presents a first evaluation of the potentialities of the imagery acquired by the GÖKTÜRK-1 satellite for the generation of orthoimages. Starting from a stereo pair captured over Rome (Italy), two orthoimages were generated with the Free and Open Source Software DATE developed at the Geodesy and Geomatics Division, Sapienza University of Rome. The two orthoimages were compared to a map of Rome at 1:2000 scale: only translations in the East and North directions were detected as geolocation errors, compliant with the expected geolocation accuracy of GÖKTÜRK-1 (CE90 of 10 m with no Ground Control Points). Specifically, an East bias of approximately -8 m was found for both the orthoimages, whereas a North bias of 1 m was detected for the quasi nadiral image and a much higher North bias of -7 m was observed for the second image, displaying an off-nadir angle of about 25 degrees. These geolocation errors can be in principle corrected using just one Ground Control Point, enabling the production of orthophoto maps at 1:5000 scale from GÖKTÜRK-1 pseudo-nadiral imagery