Association between obstructive apnea syndrome during sleep and damages to anterior labyrinth: Our experience

The obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is a chronic condition characterized by frequent episodes of collapse of the upper airways during sleep. It can be considered a multisystem disease. Among the districts involved, even the auditory system was seen to be concerned. It was enrolled a population of 20 patients after polysomnographic diagnosis of OSAS (Apnea Hypopnea Index > 10) and a control group of 28 healthy persons (Apnea Hypopnea Index < 5). Each patient has been subjected to Pure Tone Audiometry, Tympanometry, study of Acoustic Reflex, Otoacoustic Emissions and Auditory Brainstem Response. Moreover they were submitted to endoscopy of upper airway with Muller Maneuver and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). The values of ESS was 13.5 in OSAS group and 5.4 in control group. The tone audiometry is worse in all frequencies analyzed in OSAS patients, but within the normal range for both groups analyzed by 250 to 1000 Hertz. Otoacoustic emissions show a reduced reproducibility and a lower signal/ noise ratio in OSAS group (P <0.01)

Sharp interface limit for a phase field model in structural optimization

We formulate a general shape and topology optimization problem in structural optimization by using a phase field approach. This problem is considered in view of well-posedness and we derive optimality conditions. We relate the diffuse interface problem to a perimeter penalized sharp interface shape optimization problem in the sense of $\Gamma$-convergence of the reduced objective functional. Additionally, convergence of the equations of the first variation can be shown. The limit equations can also be derived directly from the problem in the sharp interface setting. Numerical computations demonstrate that the approach can be applied for complex structural optimization problems

Piercing Fishes: Porin Expansion and Adaptation to Hematophagy in the Vampire Snail Cumia reticulata

4Cytolytic pore-forming proteins are widespread in living organisms, being mostly involved in both sides of the host–pathogen interaction, either contributing to the innate defense or promoting infection. In venomous organisms, such as spiders, insects, scorpions, and sea anemones, pore-forming proteins are often secreted as key components of the venom. Coluporins are pore-forming proteins recently discovered in the Mediterranean hematophagous snail Cumia reticulata (Colubrariidae), highly expressed in the salivary glands that discharge their secretion at close contact with the host. To understand their putative functional role, we investigated coluporins’ molecular diversity and evolutionary patterns. Coluporins is a well-diversified family including at least 30 proteins, with an overall low sequence similarity but sharing a remarkably conserved actinoporin-like predicted structure. Tracking the evolutionary history of the molluscan porin genes revealed a scattered distribution of this family, which is present in some other lineages of predatory gastropods, including venomous conoidean snails. Comparative transcriptomic analyses highlighted the expansion of porin genes as a lineage-specific feature of colubrariids. Coluporins seem to have evolved from a single ancestral porin gene present in the latest common ancestor of all Caenogastropoda, undergoing massive expansion and diversification in this colubrariid lineage through repeated gene duplication events paired with widespread episodic positive selection. As for other parasites, these findings are congruent with a “one-sided arms race,” equipping the parasite with multiple variants in order to broaden its host spectrum. Overall, our results pinpoint a crucial adaptive role for coluporins in the evolution of the peculiar trophic ecology of vampire snails.openopenGerdol, Marco; Cervelli, Manuela; Oliverio, Marco; Modica, Maria VittoriaGerdol, Marco; Cervelli, Manuela; Oliverio, Marco; Modica, Maria Vittori

Singular kernels, multiscale decomposition of microstructure, and dislocation models

We consider a model for dislocations in crystals introduced by Koslowski, Cuiti\~no and Ortiz, which includes elastic interactions via a singular kernel behaving as the $H^{1/2}$ norm of the slip. We obtain a sharp-interface limit of the model within the framework of $\Gamma$-convergence. From an analytical point of view, our functional is a vector-valued generalization of the one studied by Alberti, Bouchitt\'e and Seppecher to which their rearrangement argument no longer applies. Instead we show that the microstructure must be approximately one-dimensional on most length scales and exploit this property to derive a sharp lower bound

Branching Structures in Elastic Shape Optimization

Fine scale elastic structures are widespread in nature, for instances in plants or bones, whenever stiffness and low weight are required. These patterns frequently refine towards a Dirichlet boundary to ensure an effective load transfer. The paper discusses the optimization of such supporting structures in a specific class of domain patterns in 2D, which composes of periodic and branching period transitions on subdomain facets. These investigations can be considered as a case study to display examples of optimal branching domain patterns. In explicit, a rectangular domain is decomposed into rectangular subdomains, which share facets with neighbouring subdomains or with facets which split on one side into equally sized facets of two different subdomains. On each subdomain one considers an elastic material phase with stiff elasticity coefficients and an approximate void phase with orders of magnitude softer material. For given load on the outer domain boundary, which is distributed on a prescribed fine scale pattern representing the contact area of the shape, the interior elastic phase is optimized with respect to the compliance cost. The elastic stress is supposed to be continuous on the domain and a stress based finite volume discretization is used for the optimization. If in one direction equally sized subdomains with equal adjacent subdomain topology line up, these subdomains are consider as equal copies including the enforced boundary conditions for the stress and form a locally periodic substructure. An alternating descent algorithm is employed for a discrete characteristic function describing the stiff elastic subset on the subdomains and the solution of the elastic state equation. Numerical experiments are shown for compression and shear load on the boundary of a quadratic domain.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Neurophysiological Profile of Antismoking Campaigns

Over the past few decades, antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) have been used by governments to promote healthy behaviours in citizens, for instance, against drinking before the drive and against smoke. Effectiveness of such PSAs has been suggested especially for young persons. By now, PSAs efficacy is still mainly assessed through traditional methods (questionnaires and metrics) and could be performed only after the PSAs broadcasting, leading to waste of economic resources and time in the case of Ineffective PSAs. One possible countermeasure to such ineffective use of PSAs could be promoted by the evaluation of the cerebral reaction to the PSA of particular segments of population (e.g., old, young, and heavy smokers). In addition, it is crucial to gather such cerebral activity in front of PSAs that have been assessed to be effective against smoke (Effective PSAs), comparing results to the cerebral reactions to PSAs that have been certified to be not effective (Ineffective PSAs). &e eventual differences between the cerebral responses toward the two PSA groups will provide crucial information about the possible outcome of new PSAs before to its broadcasting. &is study focused on adult population, by investigating the cerebral reaction to the vision of different PSA images, which have already been shown to be Effective and Ineffective for the promotion of an antismoking behaviour. Results showed how variables as gender and smoking habits can influence the perception of PSA images, and how different communication styles of the antismoking campaigns could facilitate the comprehension of PSA’s message and then enhance the related impac

Analysis of an Inverse Problem Arising in Photolithography

We consider the inverse problem of determining an optical mask that produces a desired circuit pattern in photolithography. We set the problem as a shape design problem in which the unknown is a two-dimensional domain. The relationship between the target shape and the unknown is modeled through diffractive optics. We develop a variational formulation that is well-posed and propose an approximation that can be shown to have convergence properties. The approximate problem can serve as a foundation to numerical methods.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figur

The effect of body mass index on chest trauma severity and prognosis

AIM: Patients with thoracic trauma constitute one third of all the trauma cases, in west Sicily were recorded 941 thoracic trauma during the period between 2006 and 2009. Sicily is one of the Italian regions with the highest rate of obesity: some studies have demonstrated that obesity is an independent risk factor for mortality in high energy blunt traumas. MATERIAL OF STUDY: This study was conducted with trauma patients older than 20 years old who presented to our Department during the last five years. We only included thoracic injuries and politrauma with a thoracic involvement and a BMI > 25- Patients were divided into two groups: HET and LET patients. RESULTS: Thoracic trauma was more common in patients with a BMI > 25 than in normo-weight and clinic admission rate, length of hospital stay and ISS score increased in proportion with the increase of BMI. Both HET (high energy trauma) and LET (low energy trauma) revealed that overweight, obese and morbidly obese patients had greater admissions and length of hospital stay. DISCUSSION: The overweight and obese population has increased substantially over the last two decades and 61,5% of the Sicilian population is above normal weight. A large body mass with excess adiposity may contribute to HET injuries in several ways. Obesity has a number of comorbidities that reduce chances of recovery in overweight and obese patients experienced thoracic trauma both HET and LET. CONCLUSION: Obesity increases morbidity independently of injury severity in thoracic trauma patients. As BMI increased, length of hospital stay increased and prognosis deteriorates

The chemical composition of the aerial parts essential oil of Acinos alpinus subsp. nebrodensis (Lamiaceae) growing in Sicily (Italy)

Acinos is a small genus of economically important plants belonging to Lamiaceae family whose botanical collocation is quite problematic due to the disagreement among the botanists and the presence in litera- ture of several names and synonyms from different sources. In the pre- sent study the chemical composition of the essential oil from aerial parts of Acinos alpinus subsp. nebrodensis (Strobl) Brullo & Brullo col- lected in Central Sicily was analyzed by GC-MS. The result showed the presence of large quantity of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons with germa- crene D (37.9%) as the most abundant component followed by (E)- b-caryophyllene (5.1%). Among the oxygenated monoterpenes thymol (8.3%) was the most abundant; good quantity of hexadecanoic acid (6.8%) was also observed. Chemotaxonomic considerations with respect all the other oils of Acinos taxa, studied so far, were carried out