Spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in a High-Volume Hospital: Vascular Surgery Impact

Increasing population rates of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are occurring in several countries and continents. The impact regarding vascular activity, consequences and complication is scarce and makes the future perspective unclear. The aim of this report is to describe the changes in a high-volume University Hospital, relevant for future decisions. The mortality and morbidity should be higher not only in COVID+ patients but also in vascular patients

La calcolosi renale infetta e la calcolosi renale con infezione: terapia preventiva, in particolare post-chirurgica

Abstract non disponibil

Health technology assessment of pathogen reduction technologies applied to plasma for clinical use

Although existing clinical evidence shows that the transfusion of blood components is becoming increasingly safe, the risk of transmission of known and unknown pathogens, new pathogens or re-emerging pathogens still persists. Pathogen reduction technologies may offer a new approach to increase blood safety. The study is the output of collaboration between the Italian National Blood Centre and the Post-Graduate School of Health Economics and Management, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy. A large, multidisciplinary team was created and divided into six groups, each of which addressed one or more HTA domains.Plasma treated with amotosalen + UV light, riboflavin + UV light, methylene blue or a solvent/detergent process was compared to fresh-frozen plasma with regards to current use, technical features, effectiveness, safety, economic and organisational impact, and ethical, social and legal implications. The available evidence is not sufficient to state which of the techniques compared is superior in terms of efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness. Evidence on efficacy is only available for the solvent/detergent method, which proved to be non-inferior to untreated fresh-frozen plasma in the treatment of a wide range of congenital and acquired bleeding disorders. With regards to safety, the solvent/detergent technique apparently has the most favourable risk-benefit profile. Further research is needed to provide a comprehensive overview of the cost-effectiveness profile of the different pathogen-reduction techniques. The wide heterogeneity of results and the lack of comparative evidence are reasons why more comparative studies need to be performed

Microzonazione sismica di un centro abitato di piccole dimensioni: il caso studio di Sant’Agata Fossili (AL)

In questo lavoro sono descritte le attività svolte nell’ambito del Progetto Europeo Strategico RISKNAT riguardanti l’analisi di microzonazione di Sant’Agata Fossili (AL). Sono in particolare descritte tutte le indagini ed analisi numeriche condotte al fine di ottenere una microzonazione sismica di livello 3 secondo quanto previsto nelle recenti linee guida nazionali degli. Al fine inoltre di valutare le ricadute di tipo applicativo di una corretta microzonazione sismica del territorio, sono state realizzate delle simulazioni di scenario adottando come riferimento gli spettri di risposta ottenuti dall’analisi di microzonazione. Le valutazioni di scenario ottenute sono state infine confrontate con le previsioni di scenario realizzabili a priori sulla base dell’adozione degli spettri di risposta definiti nelle Norme Tecniche per le Costruzioni

Integrated forest management to prevent wildfires under Mediterranean environments

This review presents a multidisciplinary framework for integrating the ecological, regulatory, procedural and technical aspects of forest management for fi res prevention under Mediterranean environments. The aims are to: i) provide a foreground of wildfi re scenario; ii) illustrate the theoretical background of forest fuel management; iii) describe the available fuel management techniques and mechanical operations for fi re prevention in forest and wildland-urban interfaces, with exemplifi cation of case-studies; iv)allocate fi re prevention activities under the hierarchy of forest planning. The review is conceived as an outline commentary discussion targeted to professionals, technicians and government personnel involved in forestry and environmental management

Risk of COVID-19 in-hospital mortality in people living with HIV compared to general population according to age and CD4 strata: data from the ICONA network

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to study whether people living with HIV (PLWH) are at higher risk of in-hospital COVID-19 mortality compared to the general population (GenPop). METHODS: This was a retrospective study in 19 Italian centers (February 2020 to November 2022) including hospitalized PLWH and GenPop with SARS-CoV-2 infection. The main outcome was in-hospital mortality. Competing risk analyses by Fine-Gray regression model were used to estimate the association between in-hospital mortality and HIV status/age. RESULTS: A total of 7399 patients with COVID-19 were included, 239 (3.2%) PLWH, and 7160 (96.8%) GenPop. By day 40, in-hospital death occurred in 1283/7160 (17.9%) among GenPop and 34/239 (14.2%) among PLWH. After adjusting for potential confounders, compared to GenPop 350 (aSHR 1.11 [95% CI 0.41-2.99]). CONCLUSIONS: In PLWH aged <65 years a CD4 ≤350 rather than HIV itself seems the driver for the observed higher risk of in-hospital mortality. We cannot however rule out that HIV infection per se is the risk factor in those aged ≥65 years

Ultrastructural features of human sperm cells cryopreserved by different methods

Cryopreservation of human spermatozoa has been recognized as a key strategy for management of male fertility. Nevertheless, current protocols of sperm freezing are neither optimal nor standardized between different labs (1). In this study we compare the ultrastructural features of human normospermic sperm samples (according to WHO parameters 2010) from 5 different freezing techniques in order to identify the best methods of cryopreservation. After informed con- sent, 21 normospermic patients (from the Medically Assisted Procreation PMA Center of the Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia) were recruited and both traditional and improved analysis of sperm quality were applied, in order to define critical steps of cryopreservation. Cryopreservation of human spermatozoa has been related to decreased motility associated with impaired velocity and viability of sperm pre-freeze and post-thaw. For all applied methods there was a significant reduction of progressive and total motility (P) as a result of freezing. To investigate ultrastructural details, 5 additional cryopreserved samples by the best two freezing methods were analyzed with elec- tron microscopy (TEM). Preliminary data showed the minimal differences between the protocols, with a large number of queues detached and large quantities of cyto- plasmic debris after of the first protocol. Spermatozoa appear to be better preserved in the second analyzed method, despite both procedures induced deteriorations at ultrastructural level (2). Other non-routine analysis will be performed to determine whether the cooling time to +4°C may affect the procedure; Comet Assay (to assess the degree of sperm DNA fragmentation) (3) and flow cytometry (to study light scat- ters patterns and membrane integrity) (4) will be applied

Variability and transient search in the SUDARE-VOICE field: a new method to extract the light curves

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) Optical Imaging of the CDFS and ES1 Fields Survey, in synergy with the SUDARE survey, is a deep optical ugri imaging of the CDFS and ES1 fields using the VST. The observations for the CDFS field comprise about 4.38 deg2 down to r ∼ 26 mag. The total on-sky time spans over 4 yr in this field, distributed over four adjacent sub-fields. In this paper, we use the multiepoch r-band imaging data to measure the variability of the detected objects and search for transients. We perform careful astrometric and photometric calibrations and point spread function modelling. A new method, referring to as differential running-average photometry, is proposed to measure the light curves of the detected objects. With the method, the difference of PSFs between different epochs can be reduced, and the background fluctuations are also suppressed. Detailed uncertainty analysis and detrending corrections on the light curves are performed. We visually inspect the light curves to select variable objects, and present some objects with interesting light curves. Further investigation of these objects in combination with multiband data will be presented in our forthcoming paper