Ultrasound-Guided Femoral and Sciatic Nerve Blocks for Repair of Tibia and Fibula Fractures in a Bennett's Wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus)

Locoregional anesthetic techniques may be a very useful tool for the anesthetic management of wallabies with injuries of the pelvic limbs and may help to prevent capture myopathies resulting from stress and systemic opioids’ administration. This report describes the use of ultrasound-guided femoral and sciatic nerve blocks in Bennett’s wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus) referred for orthopaedic surgery. Ultrasound-guided femoral and sciatic nerve blocks were attempted at the femoral triangle and proximal thigh level, respectively. Whilst the sciatic nerve could be easily visualised, the femoral nerve could not be readily identified. Only the sciatic nerve was therefore blocked with ropivacaine, and methadone was administered as rescue analgesic. The ultrasound images were stored and sent for external review. Anesthesia and recovery were uneventful and the wallaby was discharged two days postoperatively. At the time of writing, it is challenging to provide safe and effective analgesia to Macropods. Detailed knowledge of the anatomy of these species is at the basis of successful locoregional anesthesia. The development of novel analgesic techniques suitable for wallabies would represent an important step forward in this field and help the clinicians dealing with these species to improve their perianesthetic management

An extension problem for the CR fractional Laplacian

We show that the conformally invariant fractional powers of the sub-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group are given in terms of the scattering operator for an extension problem to the Siegel upper halfspace. Remarkably, this extension problem is different from the one studied, among others, by Caffarelli and Silvestre.Comment: 33 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0709.1103 by other author

Precarious voice?: Types of "political citizens" and repertoires of action among European youth

In spite of cross national differences, one of the most relevant concerns for young European people nowadays, is represented by job insecurity. In this contribution, the authors aim to shed light on the triggering role of job precariousness and unemployment on individual repertoires of political actions among young people in three European cities (Lyon in France, Turin in Italy, Cologne in Germany). Theoretically, the paper addresses the existing limitations in the literature on precarious workers' political participation by proposing a new comprehensive framework which includes a broad set of actions, including institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of political action (e.g. petitions, public demonstrations, disruptive actions). Empirically, a quantitative descriptive technique - Latent Class Cluster Analysis (LCCA)- is deployed allowing to take into account different variables (e.g. socio-demographic conditions, educational attainment, age, employment status and political beliefs) to portray, for each city under analysis and for each "mode" of participation, a set of ideal-typical individual profiles

IDENTIFICATION OF LINEAR SYSTEMS IN THE PRESENCE OF NONLINEAR DISTORTIONS

A method is presented to measure and identify a linear system in the presence of nonlinear distortions. The method is based on a two-step approach. In the first step the influence of nonlinear systems up to degree 4 is eliminated. In the second step the remaining linear system is identified using a weighted least squares method. The kernel of the proposed technique is the excitation of the system with a pure sinusoid. Special attention is paid to the elimination of higher harmonics in the excitation signal which are due to the nonlinear load of the generator

Role of Ligand Conformation on Nanoparticle-Protein Interactions

Engineered biomedical nanoparticles (NPs) administered via intravenous routes are prone to associate to serum proteins. The protein corona can mask the NP surface functionalization and hamper the delivery of the NP to its biological target. The design of corona-free NPs relies on our understanding of the chemical-physical features of the NP surface driving the interaction with serum proteins. Here, we address, by computational means, the interaction between human serum albumin (HSA) and a prototypical monolayer-protected Au nanoparticle. We show that both the chemical composition (charge, hydrophobicity) and the conformational preferences of the ligands decorating the NP surface affect the NP propensity to bind HSA

Prevalence, Characteristics, and Patterns of Health Care Use for Chronic Headache in Two Areas of Italy. Results of A Questionnaire Interview in General Practice

We set out to define the prevalence, clinical features and severity of chronic headache among the affiliates of two groups of general practitioners (GPs) and to illustrate the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities employed. A semistructured questionnaire was completed for 2291 children and adults, seen at office or home consultations over a 6-month period by 44 GPs in two areas of Northern Italy (Varese and Sondrio) and Southern Italy (San Giovanni Rotondo), to assess the presence and the clinical features of chronic headache, the severity of the disease (i.e. the degree of interference with work and daily living activities), the diagnostic work-up, and the main treatment modalities. GPs attempted the classification of headache according to the International Headache Society (IHS) criteria. The sample comprised 910 men and 1381 women aged 2-92 years; 39% of cases reported chronic headache (Varese/Sondrio 40%; San Giovanni Rotondo 38%; men 28%; women 47%). Headache was mostly present for >10 years, with one to three attacks/month lasting 4-24 h. Headache was mild in 18% of cases, moderate in 29%, severe in 24%, and very severe in 29%. Diagnostic assessment and treatment varied in the study areas. Diagnostic work-up, hospital admissions, referral to headache centres, and treatment modalities tended to be correlated with headache severity. The GPs could not classify headache using the IHS categories in 27% of cases (Varese/Sondrio 11%; San Giovanni Rotondo 78%). An inverse correlation was found between case classification and use of subsidiary diagnostic and therapeutic aids. Chronic headache is common among individuals seen in general practice. The patterns of health care use tend to be correlated to its severity. A better knowledge of the IHS criteria may be directly related to lower management costs

Boundedness of weak solutions of degenerate quasilinear equations with rough coefficients

We derive local boundedness estimates for weak solutions of a large class of second order quasilinear equations. The structural assumptions imposed on an equation in the class allow vanishing of the quadratic form associated with its principal part and require no smoothness of its coefficients. The class includes second order linear elliptic equations as studied by D. Gilbarg and N. S. Trudinger [1998] and second order subelliptic linear equations as studied by E. Sawyer and R. L. Wheeden [2006 and 2010]. Our results also extend ones obtained by J. Serrin [1964] concerning local boundedness of weak solutions of quasilinear elliptic equations