Prominent autistic traits and subthreshold bipolar/mixed features of depression in severe anorexia nervosa

Autistic traits are associated with a burdensome clinical presentation of anorexia nervosa (AN), as is AN with concurrent depression. The aim of the present study was to explore the intertwined association between complex psychopathology combining autistic traits, subthreshold bipolarity, and mixed depression among people with AN

Fatigue in lung cancer patients: symptom burden and management of challenges.

Lung cancer (LC) remains the most common cause of cancer death in several countries across the world. Fatigue is the most frequently reported symptom in LC patients throughout the entire course of disease, and all international guidelines recommend early screening for cancer-related fatigue (CRF) and symptoms that can affect patients’ quality of life. In patients with LC, fatigue belongs to the symptom cluster of pain, depression, and insomnia, which are commonly observed simultaneously, but are typically treated as separate although they may have common biological mechanisms. The treatment of CRF remains one of the difficult areas in the oncology field: scarce evidence supports pharmacological therapies, while some interesting data arising indicates alternative remedies and physical exercise seem to be one of the most effective approaches for CRF at any stage of LC

Quasi-particle creation by analogue black holes

We discuss the issue of quasi-particle production by ``analogue black holes'' with particular attention to the possibility of reproducing Hawking radiation in a laboratory. By constructing simple geometric acoustic models, we obtain a somewhat unexpected result: We show that in order to obtain a stationary and Planckian emission of quasi-particles, it is not necessary to create an ergoregion in the acoustic spacetime (corresponding to a supersonic regime in the flow). It is sufficient to set up a dynamically changing flow either eventually generating an arbitrarily small sonic region v=c, but without any ergoregion, or even just asymptotically, in laboratory time, approaching a sonic regime with sufficient rapidity.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figure

Autism Spectrum Disorder and screen time during lockdown: an Italian study.

Background: Lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic brought deep changes to the daily lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), greatly increasing their amount of time spent at home. Methods: A cohort of 243 parents of children with ASD (2-15 years old) completed an original online survey regarding the child's screen time and the modification of the ASD symptomatology during lockdown to investigate the relationship between them. Results: The data show that high solitary screen time is related with the worsening of ASD core symptoms. Conclusions: This study may help to increase awareness in the excessive use of screen in children with ASD during the lockdown, both during the pandemic as well as after it ends

Early and stable difficulties of everyday executive functions predict autism symptoms and emotional/behavioral problems in preschool age children with autism: a 2-year longitudinal study

IntroductionLongitudinal studies of autistic children show that autism symptoms and emotional/behavioral problems vary and change over time. However, the factors that affect this variability remain far from certain and very little is known about what take place in the preschool period and the role of executive functions (EF).MethodsHere, we test the influence of stable difficulties in everyday executive functioning (EEF) during early childhood across 2 years on autistic symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems. Twenty-nine autistic children (24 males and 5 females) were assessed twice within the space of 2 years. At baseline (M = 29 months, SD =5.6 months), participants were assessed for EEF, cognitive development, autistic symptoms, and emotional/behavioral problems. At follow-up, we repeated the same assessment except for cognitive development.ResultsThe group with stable difficulties (across 2 years) in EEF during early childhood showed a worsening in the severity of autistic symptoms and emotional and behavioral problems compared with children without EEF difficulties (p < 0.05), and these effects cannot be attributable to cognitive development.DiscussionOur results suggest that early and stable EEF plays the role of a modifier by interacting with the core domains of autism, in particular with the social affect domain (SA CSS), influencing social cognition and exacerbating or lessening symptom expression and emotional behavioral problems. These short-term longitudinal and preliminary findings underscore the importance of EEF as necessary target for early intervention in children with autism

Italian survey on the clinical management of non-small cell lung cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic: A lesson for the second wave

This study investigated the clinical management of non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients during the first wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in Italy. A 29-questions survey was sent to 95 Italian thoracic oncologists, with 77 % of them declaring significant changes in the outpatients management and treatment. The results of this survey pointed out a significant delay of lung cancer diagnosis along with a relevant reduction of patients’ accrual within clinical trials. Telemedicine emerged as a valid support for patient-healthcare interactions. Therapeutic indications followed the guidelines for adjuvant chemotherapy and concurrent chemo-radiation. Clinical indications to first-line therapies were largely confirmed, while major changes regarded the selection of second line treatment options as well as the management of elderly population. This work may represent a valid source of information to improve the clinical management of NSCLC patients during second wave of COVID-19 pandemic

SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Cancer Patients: A Picture of an Italian Onco-Covid Unit

BACKGROUND: The world, and Italy on the front lines, has experienced a major medical emergency due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. Cancer patients are one of the potentially most vulnerable cohorts of people, but data about their management are still few. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this monocentric retrospective study we included all SARS-CoV-2 oncological patients accepted, between March 27th and April 19th 2020, at the Onco-COVID Unit at San Luigi Gonzaga Hospital, one of the few Italian oncological-COVID wards. Data were obtained from medical records. RESULTS: Eighteen cancer patients with COVID-19 were included. The mean (±SD) age of patients was 67 ± 14 years, 89% were men. Seven (39%) developed infection in communities and 11 (61%) during hospitalization. Lung cancer was the most frequent type of cancer (10, 56%). Seven patients (39%) were symptomatic for COVID-19 at the time of diagnosis and symptoms began 2 (±2) days before. The most common were shortness of breath and diarrhea. Fever was present in 5 patients (28%). Among the 11 asymptomatic patients, 8 (73%) became symptomatic during the hospitalization (mean time of symptoms onset 4 days ±4). Six patients (33%) were on active anti-tumor treatment: 2 (33%) received anti-tumor therapy within 2 weeks before the infection diagnosis and 2 (33%) continued oncological treatment after SARS-CoV-2 positivity. Eight (44%) patients died within a mean of 12 days (±8) from the infection diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Our series confirms the high mortality among cancer patients with COVID-19. The presence of asymptomatic cases evidences that typical symptoms and fever are not the only parameters to suspect the infection. The Onco-Covid unit suggests the importance of a tailored and holistic approach, even in this difficult situation

Scharnhorst effect at oblique incidence

We consider the Scharnhorst effect (anomalous photon propagation in the Casimir vacuum) at oblique incidence, calculating both photon speed and polarization states as functions of angle. The analysis is performed in the framework of nonlinear electrodynamics and we show that many features of the situation can be extracted solely on the basis of symmetry considerations. Although birefringence is common in nonlinear electrodynamics it is not universal; in particular we verify that the Casimir vacuum is not birefringent at any incidence angle. On the other hand, group velocity is typically not equal to phase velocity, though the distinction vanishes for special directions or if one is only working to second order in the fine structure constant. We obtain an ``effective metric'' that is subtly different from previous results. The disagreement is due to the way that ``polarization sums'' are implemented in the extant literature, and we demonstrate that a fully consistent polarization sum must be implemented via a bootstrap procedure using the effective metric one is attempting to define. Furthermore, in the case of birefringence, we show that the polarization sum technique is intrinsically an approximation.Comment: 11 pages double-column format, 2 figures, RevTeX 4.0 (beta 2). Final versio