Takotsubo Syndrome is Associated with Mood Disorders and Antidepressants Use, not with Anxiety and Impairment of Quality of Life Due to the Psychiatric Disorder

Background: The aim was to study the association between mood and anxiety disorders and the Tako-Tsubo Syndrome (TTS) and to determine the role of antidepressants and the impairment of quality of life due the comorbid psychiatric disorder. Methods: Case-control study: 19 consecutive patients (17 female) with TTS compared to 76 controls without TTS, were randomly selected from the database of a Nationwide epidemiological study after matching (gender, age and residence) by controls. Psychiatric diagnoses were carried out according to the ICD-10 using semi-structured interview tools (ANTAS-SCID) administered by clinical staff. Quality of Life (Qol) was assessed by means of SF-12. Results: Only Major Depressive Disorders (MDD) showed higher frequencies in cases with statistical significance difference (p=0.014) as well as at least one Mood Disorder Diagnosis [MDD or BD] (p=0.002). The lifetime prevalence of at least one anxiety disorder with no comorbid mood disorder did not show a higher frequency in cases (p=0.57). The score at SF 12 in the TTS group was similar to those of controls (p=0.71)In the TTS group, the score at SF-12 in people with one mood or anxiety diagnosis (N=7) was similar to those without mood or anxiety diagnosis (p=0.75). The use of antidepressants was higher in TTS group (15.79% vs 1.31%; p=0.030). Conclusion: The study shows an association between TTS with depressive disorders and antidepressants use and does not confirm the association with anxiety syndromes. The study suggests the need to investigate the possible interactions between antidepressants use and mood disorders in studies with appropriate design and sample size

Point prevalence data on antimicrobial usage in Italian acute-care hospitals: Evaluation and comparison of results from two national surveys (2011-2016).

AbstractObjectives and design:Data from the Italian national point-prevalence survey (PPS) of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) were used to evaluate antimicrobial usage (AMU) in Italy and to identify targets for future interventions.Methods:The second Italian PPS was conducted in 2016 as part of the European PPS initiated by the ECDC. We compared these results with those of the first national survey, conducted in 2011.Results:An overall AMU prevalence of 44.5% (95% CI, 43.7–45.3) was estimated in 2016. No significant change in AMU prevalence was detected when comparing data with the first survey. In both surveys, the most prevalent indication for AMU was the treatment of infections. Considering all indications, penicillins plus β-lactamase inhibitors (BLIs) were the most commonly prescribed antimicrobial group in 2016; they were used significantly more than in 2011, and piperacillin plus BLI was the most frequently used agent. Broad-spectrum agents accounted for >60% of all antimicrobials for systemic use. No significant increase in the use of carbapenems occurred in 2016. Stable or decreasing carbapenem-resistance levels were identified in this study, although these levels remain alarmingly high for both Klebsiella pneumoniae (50%) and Acinetobacter baumannii (>75%).Conclusions:These results can be used to identify priorities and targets for interventions that promote more prudent use of antimicrobials, improve healthcare quality and patient safety, and combat the emergence and spread of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens

Resonances in alpha-nuclei interaction

Tunnelling of α particles through the Coulomb barrier is considered. The main attention is given to the effect of sharp peaks arising in the case of coincidence of the α energy with that of a quasistaionary state within the barrier. The question of the α-nucleus potential is discussed in this light. The method is applied to the α decay of a compound nucleus of 135Pr. The appearance of the peaks in the spectrum of emitted particles is predicted. They can give rise to ‘anomalous’ properties of some neutron resonances. The peaks can also be observed in the incoming α-nucleus channel. Observation of the peaks would give unique information about the α-nucleus potential

Examination of isospin effects in multi-dimensional Langevin fission dynamics

One-dimensional and three-dimensional dynamical fission calculations based on Langevin equations are performed for the compound nuclei Pb-194, Pb-200, Pb-206, Hg-182, and Hg-204 to investigate the influence of the compound nucleus isospin on the prescission particle multiplicities and oil the fission fragment mass-energy distribution It is found that the prescission neutron, proton, and alpha particle multiplicities have approximately the same sensitivity to the dissipation strength for a given nucleus This is at variance with Conclusions of recent papers The sensitivity of the calculated prescission particle Multiplicities to the dissipation strength becomes higher with decreasing isospin of fissioning compound nucleus, and the increase of prescission particle multiplicities could reach 200%, when the reduction coefficient of one-body viscosity k(s) increases from 0 1 to 1, for the most neutron deficient nuclei considered The variances of fission fragment mass and kinetic energy distributions are less sensitive to the change of dissipation strength than the prescission light particle multiplicities A comparison to experimental data concerning Pb-200 nucleus is also presented

Depletion of the heaviest stable N isotope is associated with NH4+/NH3 toxicity in NH4+-fed plants

Open Access article - can be viewed online without a subscription at: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1186/1471-2229-11-83Background: In plants, nitrate (NO3 -) nutrition gives rise to a natural N isotopic signature (δ15N), which correlates with the δ15N of the N source. However, little is known about the relationship between the δ15N of the N source and the 14N/15N fractionation in plants under ammonium (NH4 +) nutrition. When NH4 + is the major N source, the two forms, NH4 + and NH3, are present in the nutrient solution. There is a 1.025 thermodynamic isotope effect between NH3 (g) and NH4 + (aq) which drives to a different δ15N. Nine plant species with different NH4 +-sensitivities were cultured hydroponically with NO3 - or NH4 + as the sole N sources, and plant growth and δ15N were determined. Short-term NH4 +/NH3 uptake experiments at pH 6.0 and 9.0 (which favours NH3 form) were carried out in order to support and substantiate our hypothesis. N source fractionation throughout the whole plant was interpreted on the basis of the relative transport of NH4 + and NH3. Results: Several NO3 --fed plants were consistently enriched in 15N, whereas plants under NH4 + nutrition were depleted of 15N. It was shown that more sensitive plants to NH4 + toxicity were the most depleted in 15N. In parallel, N-deficient pea and spinach plants fed with 15NH4 + showed an increased level of NH3 uptake at alkaline pH that was related to the 15N depletion of the plant. Tolerant to NH4 + pea plants or sensitive spinach plants showed similar trend on 15N depletion while slight differences in the time kinetics were observed during the initial stages. The use of RbNO3 as control discarded that the differences observed arise from pH detrimental effects. Conclusions: This article proposes that the negative values of δ15N in NH4 +-fed plants are originated from NH3 uptake by plants. Moreover, this depletion of the heavier N isotope is proportional to the NH4 +/NH3 toxicity in plants species. Therefore, we hypothesise that the low affinity transport system for NH4 + may have two components: one that transports N in the molecular form and is associated with fractionation and another that transports N in the ionic form and is not associated with fractionatio