Pyroclastic lumps: quick diapiric structures off the Naples Bay, Italy. European Geophysical Society (EGS), 25th General Assembly, Millenium Conference on Earth, Planetary & Solar Systems. Nice (France) 25-29 Aprii 2000.

Sacchi M., D'Argenio B., Morra V., Petrazzuoli S., Àiello G., Budillon F., Samacchiaro G. and Tonielli R., 2000. Pyroclastic lumps: quick diapiric structures off the Naples Bay, Italy. European Geophysical Society (EGS), 25th General Assembly, Millenium Conference on Earth, Planetary & Solar Systems. Nice (France) 25-29 Aprii 2000

Terremoto del 29 dicembre 2013 nel Matese (MW = 5.0). Indagine speditiva degli effetti nell’area epicentrale e analisi preliminare della sequenza sismica.

Il 29 dicembre 2013 un terremoto di magnitudo Mw=5.0 (profondità 10.5 km) è avvenuto nell'area dei Monti del Matese alle ore 18:08:43 ora locale

Residential building and occupant vulnerability to tephra fall

International audiencePlinian and subplinian volcanic eruptions can be accompanied by tephra falls which may last hours or days, posing threats to people, buildings and economic activity. Numerous historical examples exist of tephra damage and tephra casualties. The mechanisms and consequences of roof collapse from static tephra load are an important area of tephra damage requiring more research. This paper contributes to this work by estimating the structural vulnerability of buildings to tephra load based on both analytical studies and observed damage. New studies are presented of roof strengths in the area around Mt. Vesuvius in southern Italy and of field surveys undertaken in other European volcanic locations to assess building vulnerability to tephra fall. The results are a proposed set of new European tephra fall roof vulnerability curves in areas potentially threatened by explosive volcanic eruptions along with comments on the human casualty implications of roof collapse under tephra loading. Some mitigation recommendations are provided

Prescription of antibiotics and anxiolytics/hypnotics to asthmatic patients in general practice: a cross-sectional study based on French and Italian prescribing data

BACKGROUND Asthma is often poorly controlled and guidelines are often inadequately followed in medical practice. In particular, the prescription of non-asthma-specific drugs can affect the quality of care. The goal of this study was to measure the frequency of the prescription of antibiotics and anxiolytics/hypnotics to asthmatic patients and to look for associations between sex or age and the prescription of these drugs. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted using computerised medical records from French and Italian general practitioners' networks. Patients were selected according to criteria adapted from the HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) criteria. The outcome measure was the number of antibiotics or anxiolytics/hypnotics prescriptions per patient in 1 year. Parallel multivariate models were developed. RESULTS The final sample included 3,093 French patients (mean age 27.6 years, 49.7% women) and 3,872 Italian patients (mean age 29.1 years, 48.7% women). In the univariate analysis, the French patients were prescribed fewer antibiotics than the Italian patients (37.1% vs. 42.2%, p < 0.00001) but more anxiolytics/hypnotics (17.8% vs. 6.9%, p < 0.0001). In the multivariate models, the female patients were more likely to receive antibiotics (odds ratio: 1.5 [1.3-1.7]) and anxiolytics/hypnotics (odds ratio: 1.8 [1.5-2.1]). CONCLUSIONS The prescription of antibiotics and anxiolytics/hypnotics to asthmatic patients is frequent, especially in women. Asthma guidelines should address this issue by referring to other guidelines covering the prescription of non-asthma-specific drugs, and alternative non-pharmacological interventions should be considered

Social prescribing and lifestyle medicine—a remedy to chronic health problems?

Social prescribing has been identified as a chance to take a holistic approach to people’s health and wellbeing, especially for people with one or more long-term conditions. Its systemic implementation was a part of the recent United Kingdom National Health Service Long Term Plan. With a lifestyle medicine focus on equipping patients in tools necessary for self-care and self-management of their lifestyle-related health problems that coexists with the need for creating an environment supporting healthy choices, a social prescribing model seems to offer a promising strategy for advancing lifestyle medicine. This idea was discussed during a meeting hosted by the Polish Society of Lifestyle Medicine in collaboration with European Rural and Isolated Practitioners Association, Polish Society of Young Family Doctors (“Młodzi Lekarze Rodzinni”), British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and European Lifestyle Medicine Council in June 2020. The aftermath—this position statement is an Authors’ attempt at summarizing the common ground for social prescribing and lifestyle medicine. It collects experiences of practitioners and researchers from five European countries as well as making recommendations for applying this model in Poland. Despite referring to local conditions, it might provide universal takeaway messages for any healthcare providers interested in combining social prescribing with lifestyle medicine practice

Is a practice-based rural research network feasible in Europe?

Research in family medicine is a well-established entity nationally and internationally, covering all aspects of primary care including remote and isolated practices. However, due to limited capacity and resources in rural family medicine, its potential is not fully exploited yet. An idea to foster European rural primary care research by establishing a practice-based research network has been recently put forward by several members of the European Rural and Isolated Practitioners Association (EURIPA) and the European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN). Two workshops on why, and how to design a practice-based research network among rural family practices in Europe were conducted at two international meetings. This paper revisits the definition of practice-based research in family medicine, reflects on the current situation in Europe regarding the research in rural family practice, and discusses a rationale for practice-based research in rural family medicine. A SWOT analysis was used as the main tool to analyse the current situation in Europe regarding the research in rural family practice at both meetings. The key messages gained from these meetings may be employed by the Wonca Working Party on research, the International Federation of Primary Care Research Network and the EGPRN that seek to introduce a practice-based research approach. The cooperation and collaboration between EURIPA and EGPRN creates a fertile ground to discuss further the prospect of a European practice-based rural family medicine research network, and to draw on the joint experience

A Distributed Video Coding System for Multi View Video Plus Depth

Multi-view video plus depth (MVD) is gathering huge attention, as witnessed by the recent standardization activity, since its rich information about the geometry of the scene allows high-quality synthesis of virtual viewpoints. Distributed video coding of such kind of content is a challenging problem whose solution could enable new services as interactive multi-view streaming. In this work we propose to exploit the geometrical information of the MVD format in order to estimate inter-view occlusions without communication among cameras. Experimental results show a bit rate reduction up to 77% for low bit rate w.r.t. state-of-the-art architectures

Recommendations of the Polish Society of Physiotherapy, the Polish Society of Family Medicine, the College of Family Physicians in Poland and the European Rural and Isolated Practitioners Association regarding the use of simple forms of physiotherapy, including massage and self-massage in primary care, endorsed by the Polish Society of Physiotherapy Specialists

Background In general practice, dysfunctions within the locomotor system are a recurring health issue. Most frequently, diagnoses and treatments relate to pain syndromes of the backbone, the shoulder girdle or the pelvic girdle. The authors believe that physiotherapy, along with other clinical disciplines, should be regarded as an important factor which influences the effectiveness of the therapeutic process in this area. In primary care, treatment of musculoskeletal disorders – especially at the stage of early clinical symptoms – should incorporate basic physiotherapy methods, e.g., massage, physical procedures, kinesiotherapy and the underrated education of the patient. Restoring appropriate spatial arrangement of tissues provides the right conditions for the regeneration and repair of muscles, ligaments and tendons, although it is a process that requires a long time. Therefore, it can be very important to introduce self-therapy in the form of systematically repeated, easy-to-replicate procedures in the scope of self-massage and self-kinesiotherapy. Objectives This paper presents the impact of physiotherapy in treating selected disorders and pain syndromes of the locomotor system with particular attention to the role of massage. Emphasis is placed on the meaning of self-massage in the process of restoring structural balance of tissues. The model of active inclusion of the patient in the treatment process as preparation for self-therapy is presented. This paper aims to justify the need to reorganize health services provided through general practicioners within the National Health Fund network by incorporating physiotherapy in primary care.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pretreatment with verapamil in patients with persistent or chronic atrial fibrillation who underwent electrical cardioversion

AbstractOBJECTIVESTo evaluate, in a prospective and randomized fashion, the efficacy of a pretreatment with verapamil (V) in reducing recurrences of atrial fibrillation (AF) after electrical cardioversion (C).BACKGROUNDThe increased vulnerability for AF recurrence is probably due to AF-induced changes in the electrophysiologic properties of the atria. This electrical remodeling seems to be due to intracellular calcium overload.METHODSOne hundred seven patients with persistent or chronic AF underwent external and/or internal C. All patients received oral propafenone (P) (900 mg/day) three days before and during the entire period of follow-up (three months). In the first group, patients received only the P. In the second group, in adjunct to P, oral V (240 mg/day) was initiated three days before C and continued during the follow-up. Finally, in the third group, oral V was administered three days before and continued only for three days after electrical C.RESULTSDuring the three months of follow-up, 23 patients (23.7%) had AF recurrence. Mantel-Haenszel cumulative chi-square reached a significant level only when comparing AF free survival curves of group I versus group II and group III (chi-square = 5.2 and 4, respectively; p < 0.05). Significantly, 15 (65.2%) AF relapses occurred during the first week after cardioversion with a higher incidence in group I (10/33 patients, 30.3%) than group II (2/34 patients, 5.9%; p = 0.01) and group III (3/30 patients, 10%; p = 0.04).CONCLUSIONSSix days of oral V administration centered on the C day, combined with P, significantly reduce the incidence of early recurrences of AF compared with P alone