Patient satisfaction and food waste in obstetrics and gynaecology wards

Introduction: Patient satisfaction is an indicator of healthcare quality, and expectation is an important determinant. A component of patient satisfaction is the quality of foodservice. An indicator of this quality is the food wasted by hospitalised patients. In the present study, we investigated patient satisfaction regarding food and foodservice, the expectation on food quality and the amount of food wasted in two obstetrics and gynaecology wards in Northern and Southern Italy. Patients and Methods: A questionnaire, including sociodemographic data, rate of food waste, expectations of food quality and characteristics of food and foodservice, was admini-strated to 550 inpatients in obstetrics and gynaecology wards (275 for each hospital). Univariate analysis was performed to describe the results, and multivariate analysis was carried out to control for sociodemographic data. Results: Northern patients were more satisfied with the quality of food (54.2% vs 36.0%) and foodservice (54.5% vs 38.2%) than southern patients. Northern patients had more positive expectations about the quality of food (69.5% vs 31.6%), whereas southern patients stated that they had no expectations. Southern patients gave more importance to mealtime (72.7% vs 26.2%), and many of them brought food from home to the hospital (30.2% vs 2.2%) through relatives who came to visit them. Southern patients discarded about 41.7% of food served, whereas northern patients discarded only about 15.3%. Discussion: Food waste is a worldwide problem due to its economic, social and environmental effects. Especially in hospitals, food waste could have a negative impact on the overall patient satisfaction

Vertebrate-mediated seed rain and artificial perches contribute to overcome seed dispersal limitation in a Mediterranean old field

Natural regeneration of vegetation is a frequent outcome of land abandonment, although the rate and diversity of such regeneration may be severely restricted by seed dispersal limitation, among other factors. In spite of this, studies aiming to quantify seed rain and test methods to enhance it, such as artificial perches, are still underrepresented in the Mediterranean. In our study, we quantified seed rain density and richness and tested the effects of artificial perches on such rain over a distance gradient on seven Mediterranean island old fields. In each of the seven sites, we positioned three sampling stations, each consisting of 1 seed trap under an artificial perch and 1 as a control on the ground, distributed at 30, 60, and 90 m from natural vegetation remnant. All traps received seeds, suggesting no overall dispersal limitation. Of the 11 seed species found, 10 were fleshy-fruited and dispersed by vertebrates. Seed traps under perches received significantly higher seed rain of fleshy-fruited species dispersed by birds, while ground traps received significantly more seeds of the species also dispersed by mammals, especially Rubus ulmifolius. The distance from the seed source was nonsignificant in all cases. Our study demonstrates the key role of vertebrate-mediated seed dispersal services to overcome dispersal limitation in old fields, as well as the effective contribution of even small artificial perches in contrasting such limitation. The lack of differences over the distance gradient reveal that the upper spatial limit of dispersal limitation was not achieved

Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Sexual Behavioral Factors of Patients with Sexually Transmitted Infections Attending a Hospital in Southern Italy

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a serious global health problem. In Italy, data describing the vulnerability to STIs of specific sexual minorities and the influence of sociodemographic and behavioral determinants are limited, as most infections are not subject to mandatory notification. This retrospective study describes the sociodemographic profile and main sexual behaviors of patients attending a hospital in Palermo (Sicily, Italy) from January 2018 to March 2019 as predictors of STI risk. Patients were divided in subgroups: men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM), men-who-have-sex-with-women (MSW), bisexual men and females. Data were obtained through an anonymous questionnaire. Patients were tested for chlamydia, syphilis, Mycoplasma genitalium infection, genital herpes and HPV infection. A total of 294 subjects with STIs (male/female ratio about 2:1) were screened. Of the total sample, 79.6% of patients were Italian. MSM accounted for 34.3%, MSW for 29.6%, bisexual men for 5.8% and females for 30.3%. A total of 44.5% of patients had a high education level, 42.5% reported irregular use of condoms, 20.7% reported having had 5-10 partners in the six months prior to the visit and 32.9% were HIV-positive. HPV infection and syphilis were the most prevalent STIs. Conclusions: The most common profile of patients attending our clinic was that of an adult, Italian man with a high level of education, poor use of condoms and a high number of partners. MSM had the highest sex-behavior-related risk for STIs. In addition, our results suggest that all STD teams need to implement counselling topics and recommendations to share with patients, as well as tips on how to approach sexual health education/counselling, thereby promoting patient-centered approaches and educational programs

On the characterisation of paired monotone metrics

Hasegawa and Petz introduced the notion of dual statistically monotone metrics. They also gave a characterisation theorem showing that Wigner-Yanase-Dyson metrics are the only members of the dual family. In this paper we show that the characterisation theorem holds true under more general hypotheses.Comment: 12 pages, to appear on Ann. Inst. Stat. Math.; v2: changes made to conform to accepted version, title changed as wel

Combined platelet-rich plasma and lipofilling treatment provides great improvement in facial skin-induced lesion regeneration for scleroderma patients

Background: The use of stem cells, including mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), for regenerative medicine is gaining interest for the clinical benefits so far obtained in patients. This study investigates the use of adipose autologous tissue in combination with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to improve the clinical outcome of patients affected by systemic sclerosis (SSc). Methods: Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs) and PRPs were purified from healthy donors and SSc patients. The multilineage differentiation potential of AD-MSCs and their genotypic-phenotypic features were investigated. A cytokine production profile was evaluated on AD-MSCs and PRPs from both healthy subjects and SSc patients. The adipose tissue-derived cell fraction, the so-called stromal vascular fraction (SVF), was coinjected with PRP in the perioral area of SSc patients. Results: Histopathological and phenotypical analysis of adipose tissue from SSc patients revealed a disorganization of its distinct architecture coupled with an altered cell composition. Although AD-MSCs derived from SSc patients showed high multipotency, they failed to sustain a terminally differentiated progeny. Furthermore, SVFs derived from SSc patients differed from healthy donors in their MSC-like traits coupled with an aberrant cytokine production profile. Finally, the administration of PRP in combination with autologous SVF improved buccal's rhyme, skin elasticity and vascularization for all of the SSc patients enrolled in this study. Conclusions: This innovative regenerative therapy could be exploited for the treatment of chronic connective tissue diseases, including SSc

A Class of Non-Parametric Statistical Manifolds modelled on Sobolev Space

We construct a family of non-parametric (infinite-dimensional) manifolds of finite measures on Rd. The manifolds are modelled on a variety of weighted Sobolev spaces, including Hilbert-Sobolev spaces and mixed-norm spaces. Each supports the Fisher-Rao metric as a weak Riemannian metric. Densities are expressed in terms of a deformed exponential function having linear growth. Unusually for the Sobolev context, and as a consequence of its linear growth, this "lifts" to a nonlinear superposition (Nemytskii) operator that acts continuously on a particular class of mixed-norm model spaces, and on the fixed norm space W²'¹ i.e. it maps each of these spaces continuously into itself. It also maps continuously between other fixed-norm spaces with a loss of Lebesgue exponent that increases with the number of derivatives. Some of the results make essential use of a log-Sobolev embedding theorem. Each manifold contains a smoothly embedded submanifold of probability measures. Applications to the stochastic partial differential equations of nonlinear filtering (and hence to the Fokker-Planck equation) are outlined

Bose-Einstein correlations of same-sign charged pions in the forward region in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

Bose-Einstein correlations of same-sign charged pions, produced in protonproton collisions at a 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy, are studied using a data sample collected by the LHCb experiment. The signature for Bose-Einstein correlations is observed in the form of an enhancement of pairs of like-sign charged pions with small four-momentum difference squared. The charged-particle multiplicity dependence of the Bose-Einstein correlation parameters describing the correlation strength and the size of the emitting source is investigated, determining both the correlation radius and the chaoticity parameter. The measured correlation radius is found to increase as a function of increasing charged-particle multiplicity, while the chaoticity parameter is seen to decreas

Measurement of the Bs0→J/ψηB_{s}^{0} \rightarrow J/\psi \eta lifetime

Using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $3 fb^{-1}$, collected by the LHCb experiment in $pp$ collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, the effective lifetime in the $B^0_s \rightarrow J/\psi \eta$ decay mode, $\tau_{\textrm{eff}}$, is measured to be $\tau_{\textrm{eff}} = 1.479 \pm 0.034~\textrm{(stat)} \pm 0.011 ~\textrm{(syst)}$ ps. Assuming $CP$ conservation, $\tau_{\textrm{eff}}$ corresponds to the lifetime of the light $B_s^0$ mass eigenstate. This is the first measurement of the effective lifetime in this decay mode.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-017.htm

Study of charmonium production in b -hadron decays and first evidence for the decay Bs0

Using decays to φ-meson pairs, the inclusive production of charmonium states in b-hadron decays is studied with pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb−1, collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. Denoting byBC ≡ B(b → C X) × B(C → φφ) the inclusive branching fraction of a b hadron to a charmonium state C that decays into a pair of φ mesons, ratios RC1C2 ≡ BC1 /BC2 are determined as Rχc0ηc(1S) = 0.147 ± 0.023 ± 0.011, Rχc1ηc(1S) =0.073 ± 0.016 ± 0.006, Rχc2ηc(1S) = 0.081 ± 0.013 ± 0.005,Rχc1 χc0 = 0.50 ± 0.11 ± 0.01, Rχc2 χc0 = 0.56 ± 0.10 ± 0.01and Rηc(2S)ηc(1S) = 0.040 ± 0.011 ± 0.004. Here and below the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic.Upper limits at 90% confidence level for the inclusive production of X(3872), X(3915) and χc2(2P) states are obtained as RX(3872)χc1 < 0.34, RX(3915)χc0 < 0.12 andRχc2(2P)χc2 < 0.16. Differential cross-sections as a function of transverse momentum are measured for the ηc(1S) andχc states. The branching fraction of the decay B0s → φφφ is measured for the first time, B(B0s → φφφ) = (2.15±0.54±0.28±0.21B)×10−6. Here the third uncertainty is due to the branching fraction of the decay B0s → φφ, which is used for normalization. No evidence for intermediate resonances is seen. A preferentially transverse φ polarization is observed.The measurements allow the determination of the ratio of the branching fractions for the ηc(1S) decays to φφ and p p asB(ηc(1S)→ φφ)/B(ηc(1S)→ p p) = 1.79 ± 0.14 ± 0.32

Measurement of the mass and lifetime of the Ωb−\Omega_b^- baryon

A proton-proton collision data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb$^{-1}$ collected by LHCb at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and 8 TeV, is used to reconstruct $63\pm9$ $\Omega_b^-\to\Omega_c^0\pi^-$, $\Omega_c^0\to pK^-K^-\pi^+$ decays. Using the $\Xi_b^-\to\Xi_c^0\pi^-$, $\Xi_c^0\to pK^-K^-\pi^+$ decay mode for calibration, the lifetime ratio and absolute lifetime of the $\Omega_b^-$ baryon are measured to be \begin{align*} \frac{\tau_{\Omega_b^-}}{\tau_{\Xi_b^-}} &= 1.11\pm0.16\pm0.03, \\ \tau_{\Omega_b^-} &= 1.78\pm0.26\pm0.05\pm0.06~{\rm ps}, \end{align*} where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic and from the calibration mode (for $\tau_{\Omega_b^-}$ only). A measurement is also made of the mass difference, $m_{\Omega_b^-}-m_{\Xi_b^-}$, and the corresponding $\Omega_b^-$ mass, which yields \begin{align*} m_{\Omega_b^-}-m_{\Xi_b^-} &= 247.4\pm3.2\pm0.5~{\rm MeV}/c^2, \\ m_{\Omega_b^-} &= 6045.1\pm3.2\pm 0.5\pm0.6~{\rm MeV}/c^2. \end{align*} These results are consistent with previous measurements.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2016-008.htm