An alarming deterioration of neurological status

This clinical case should make us reflect on the potential dangers of lithium, often too readily prescribed by non expert physicians to elderly, and often poorly compliant, patients. There also needs to be very close monitoring of plasma lithium levels, in addition to paying attention to clinical signs, such as a persistent polyuria or hyperosmolarity, because these could be important early warning signs. It is therefore useful to reiterate that, in case of lithium intoxication with altered neurological status despite improvement blood tests, it is necessary to consider pontine or extra-pontine myelinolysis as a rare but possible complicatio

Lightning-Induced Voltages on Overhead Distribution Lines: Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Related Problems and their Impact on Power Quality

Recent power quality studies have been focused on the source-identification of voltage disturbances at distribution network busses. This paper describes a method aimed at correlating indirect-lightning events with power systems relay operations, associated with voltage dips. The proposed method, based on the coordinated use of the Italian lightning location system CESI-SIRF, the Italian monitoring system of protection manoeuvres CESI-SAM, and the availability of an advanced simulation tool for the accurate simulation of lightning-induced voltages on complex power networks, namely the LIOVEMTP code, is applied to the real case of an Italian distribution system. The LIOV-EMTP code is also employed along with a statistical procedure based on the Monte Carlo method to carry out a statistical analysis aimed at assessing the lightning performance of a typical Italian distribution line

Disentangling the impact of COVID-19 infection on clinical outcomes and preventive strategies in older persons: An Italian perspective

Italy was one of the first western countries to embrace the first wave of COVID-19 and undergo detrimental outcomes in older adults in different clinical settings, especially in those with comorbidity and frailty. In addition, older nursing home (NH) residents had significantly higher mortality rates most likely due to the increased susceptibility of infection due to combined physical vulnerability and risks linked to the NH living environment itself. Different reports throughout Italy have rapidly highlighted selected outcomes related to COVID-19 in older patients being treated in acute and long-term care (LTC) settings. However, the majority of these studies are single center studies. Thus, it remains fundamental to collect large data from prospective based-population studies in order to identify preventive and therapeutic COVID-19 risk/protective factors correlated with COVID-19 health status outcomes. In this commentary paper, we will discuss different Italian reports according to clinical settings and highlight the importance of GeroCovid Observational and GeroCovid Vax, two large population based prospective studies in Italy

Input impedance of integrated elliptical lens antennas

An efficient method is presented for prediction of the input impedance of integrated elliptical lens antennas, excited by a focal radiator which consists of either a resonant slot or a slot-coupled patch. Simple equivalent networks are derived from this method which accounts for effects of multiple reflections inside the lens, which is useful for CAD purposes. Numerical results are presented to validate the equivalent networks. Furthermore, it is shown that these internal reflections significantly affect the input impedance of the primary source