Follow-up study of over three years of patients with uveitis after cataract phacoemulsification: outcomes and complications

Purpose: To evaluate the rate and onset of intraoperative and postoperative complications post-phacoemulsification. Methods: One hundred sixty-two eyes of 145 patients with uveitis who underwent phacoemulsification between 2006 and 2009 were identified through surgical record review. Fifty-nine eyes of 46 patients met the inclusion criteria. Hazard ratio (HR) and Kaplan-Meier survival probability were calculated for each class of uveitis. Results: Macular edema (ME) resulted to be associated to chronic postoperative inflammation (r = 0.6; p = 0.00) and mostly related to patients who presented more than one postoperative relapse/year (r = 0.2; p = 0.02). Fuchs uveitis resulted to be a risk factor for posterior capsule opacification (PCO) (HR 3.36 IC95%1.0-10.5; p = 0.03). Hypotony and elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) were detected in the anterior uveitis group (0.02 EY). Conclusion: The HR to develop ME was significantly related to chronic anterior uveitis. PCO and elevated IOP are

Agarsenone, a Cadinane Sesquiterpenoid from Commiphora erythraea

Agarsenone (1), a new cadinane sesquiterpenoid, was isolated from the resin of Commiphora erythraea. The structures of 1 and its decomposition products agarsenolides (2a and 2b) and myrrhone (3) were established by extensive NMR spectroscopic analysis. The absolute configuration of 3 and the relative and absolute configurations of 1 were assigned by comparison of experimental and calculated optical rotatory dispersion and electronic circular dichroism spectr

Forest Area Changes in Cinque Terre National Park in the Last 80 Years. Consequences on Landslides and Forest Fire Risks

Cinque Terre, one of the most important Italian cultural landscapes, has not been spared from depopulation and agricultural abandonment processes, that involved many rural areas in Europe, as a consequence of socio-economic transformations that occurred after WWII. Depopulation of rural areas, especially in mountains or in terraced areas, caused significant environmental consequences, such as the decrease of biodiversity, the landscape homogenization, the increase of hydrogeological and forest fires risks. Cinque Terre National Park (5TNP) was established in 1999, and, differently from other Italian National Parks, not just for protecting natural habitats, but mainly to preserve, restore and valorize the historical terraced landscape. Moreover, the area is a UNESCO cultural landscape site and it is partly protected by three Sites of Community Importance. The research intended to investigate the transformations that have affected forested areas inside the 5TNP in the period 1936–2018, also highlighting the connections with hydrogeological and forest fires risks, as a support for the Park planning strategies and the conservation of the UNESCO site. Results highlighted that 37% of the current forests are the consequence of dry stones terraces abandonment that occurred in the twentieth century, with negative effects on the stability of steep slopes, hydrogeological risk, forest fires and on the conservation of a unique cultural landscape. This confirms the current national trend showing no deforestation occurring, but rather a continuous increase of forests on abandoned land. While 5TNP policies and actions are effectively aimed at pursuing an equilibrium between cultivated areas and forests, the Sites of Community Importance located inside the Park mainly focuses on the conservation of “natural habitats”, even if the current vegetation is also the result of secondary successions on former cultivated land. The research highlighted the need to valorize “cultural values” in forest planning as well as the importance of forest history for an accurate planning of forest resources in protected areas

Assessment of Tuscany Landscape Structure According to the Regional Landscape Plan Partition

The landscape is considered a strategic asset by the Tuscan regional government, also for its economic role, meaning that a specific Landscape Plan has been developed, dividing the region into 20 Landscape Units and representing the main planning instrument at the regional level. Following the aims of the Landscape Plan and the guidelines of the European Landscape Convention, it is necessary to develop an adequate assessment of the landscape, evaluating the main typologies and their characteristics. The aim of this research is to carry out an assessment of the landscape diversity in Tuscany based on 20 study areas, analyzing land uses and landscape mosaic structures through the application of landscape metrics: number of land uses, mean patch size (MPS), Hill’s diversity number, edge density (ED), patch density (PD), land use diversity (LUD). The results highlight a correlation between the landscape typologies (forest, agricultural, mixed, periurban) and the complexity of the landscape structure, especially in relation to MPS and PD, while the combination of PD and LUD calculated on the basis of a hexagonal grid allows obtaining landscape complexity maps. Despite the phenomena of reforestation and urban sprawl of recent decades, Tuscany still preserves different landscape typologies characterized by a good level of complexity. This is particularly evident in mixed landscapes, while agricultural landscapes have a larger variability because of different historical land organization forms. The methodology applied in this study provided a large amount of data about land uses and the landscape mosaic structure and complexity and proved to be effective in assessing the landscape structure and in creating a database that can represent a baseline for future monitoring