Dibutyl phosphate/propylamine mixtures show supra-molecular slow building up under magnetic field

Liquids with anisotropic local nanostructures which are able to be oriented by a magnetic field can give birefringence. Usually magnetically-induced birefringence is low owing to the low magnetic energy of molecules and to the averaging effect due to thermal agitation. At the same time, the response is usually very fast given the typical timescales of molecular orientational dynamics (nanoseconds). However, we show that the dibutyl phosphate/propylamine liquid mixture is characterized by an extremely slow response (hours) to the magnetic field and by an intense overall effect (Δn/λ ≈ −0.1m-1at 1 Tesla).This surprising behavior has been interpreted as a manifestation of a novel phenomenon of progressive building up of larger and larger internally ordered hetero-associates driven by the magnetic field and involving strongly interacting amphiphiles

Serapias X Marchiorii Turco & Medagli (Serapias Bergonii E. G. Camus X Serapias Politisi Renz) Ibrido naturale nuovo del Salento

EnNatural hybridization in the plant kingdom, that particularly occurs in disturbed habitats where is generally considered as a threat for rare and endangered species, is a potent evolutionary force. In fact in Mediterranean orchids, mainly pertaining to the Anacamptys, Ophrys and Serapias genres, the hybridization is a common phenomenon, as a natural consequence of their pollination system, that often it has carried to the defined phenomenon “sympatric speciation”. Here we describe the result of this process as a new Orchidaceae’s hybryd species, belong to Serapias genus, named Serapias x marchiorii Turco & Medagli, through analysis of the morphological aspects. The parental of the new hybrid species are: Serapias bergonii E.G. Camus and Serapias politisi Renz. Serapias bergonii = S. vomeracea (N.L. Burm.) Briq. subsp. laxiflora (Soò) Gölz & Reinhard was originally described as an hybrid entity, result of a discovery made in Corfù at the “Saline of Potamos”. It is a species that is distributed in eastern areas, present in Italy only in the southern Apulia and southern Sicily. Serapias politisi, instead, was originally described as an hybrid between Serapias bergonii and Serapias parviflora at the island of Corfù, then was defined as a species and reported for the mainland Greece, the Aegean’s islands, the western Anatolia and in Apulia, the only Italian region of presence, where it is widespread mostly in Salento. Thus, the ranges of these two entities have little overlap that make rare and localized the interspecific hybrids. This is, probably, the reason that makes the hybrid in question not widely distributed. S. x marchiorii was found in a small area known as “Palude di Cassano” in the town of Melendugno (Le) along the adriatic coast, May 13, 2009. The area of small dimensions, is occupied mostly by a depression in karst nature which was partially drained in the middle of ‘900 with the creation of a drainage channel; the area surrounding the marsh is mainly occupied by grasslands and maquis. The station was found with few plants and was situated at an altitude between 12 and 15m above sea level, on a calcareous substrates known as “Calcareniti del Salento”

Psychiatric Emergency in Children and Adolescents: A Retrospective Study in Parma Local Health Unit

The mental health care system in Italy is based on Law 180/70 which leaves great regional autonomy about the management of adolescent patients suffering from psychiatric diseases. The aim of this study is the evaluation of demographic, social, and clinical features of minors admitted to psychiatric wards, as starting point to improve individualized services for them. Data about all under 18s consecutively admitted to Parma’s psychiatric wards from 2013 to 2015 were retrospectively collected from medical records. Diagnoses were classified according to ICD-10 criteria, and statistical analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software (IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0) for Windows. Clinical samples include 51 cases, 30 males (mean age: 15.5 years, ranging from 12 to 17 years) and 21 females (mean age: 15.9, ranging from 14 to 17 years). The most frequent diagnosis is conduct disorder (39.2%), with higher prevalence among males. Following this, 23.5% of the patients present comorbidity issues and 9.8% suffer from personality disorders, which is more frequent among females. High percentages of foreigners (31.4%), adopted minors (15.7%), and drug users (40%) are reported. Furthermore, data reveal that unprotective family environment, registered in 80.4% of cases, plays an important role as risk factor for the development of mental disease, readmissions in psychiatric wards, and discharge to residential facilities. Readmissions, as well as compulsory treatments (11 cases), are mainly required in case of conduct disorders and comorbidity diagnosis. Lastly, in contrast with the situation before hospital admission, most patients (63.3%) are discharged and sent to community residential facilities. Findings can be useful to improve the management of psychiatric emergencies in minors, focusing on their specific needs, such as conduct disorders and substance abuse, and to face emerging challenges, for example, mental health disease associated with the growing phenomenon of immigration

Comparative chromosome studies in species of subtribe Orchidinae (Orchidaceae)

In our study, FISH mapping using 18S-5.8S-25S rDNA and 5S rDNA sequences was performed for the first time on Ophrys tenthredinifera Willdenow, 1805, Serapias vomeracea (Burman f., 1770) Briquet, 1910 and Himantoglossum hircinum (Linnaeus, 1753) Sprengel, 1826. A detailed study was also performed on O. tenthredinifera using Giemsa-staining, silver-staining, CMA fluorescence banding and fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) with rDNA probes. We analysed two subspecies, i.e. O. tenthredinifera subsp. neglecta (Parlatore, 1860) E.G. Camus, 1908 and O. tenthredinifera subsp. grandiflora (Tenore, 1819) Kreutz, 2004 by the traditional Feulgen method and constructed the karyotype. The cytotaxonomic implications for both taxa are also discussed. In Himantoglossum hircinum, FISH and silver staining highlighted differences in the number of two rDNA families (35S and 5S) with respect to Barlia robertiana (Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, 1807) Greuter, 1967. In addition, fluorescence in situ hybridisation was also applied to diploid (2n = 2x = 36) and triploid (2n = 3x = 54) Anacamptis morio (Linnaeus, 1753) R.M. Bateman, Pridgeon et M.W. Chase, 1997. As far as we are aware, this is the first case of autotriploidy observed in A. morio

The opening of the Tyrrhenian basin and the Apennine chain formation in the kinematic context of Africa - Europe collision

EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online, 4-8 may 2020The Africa Europe collision, which produces the formation of the Alpine arc, in the Mediterranean area is accompanied by passive subduction processes, resulting from the sinking of the remnant Alpine Tethys and the Ionian lithosphere, and from the fragmentation of the Adriatic plate. In this complex deformation, back-arc basins (Alboran, Balearic, Tyrrhenian and Hellenic) and circum - Mediterranean mountain ranges are formed. In this work we focus our attention on the opening of the Tyrrhenian basin and the contemporary formation of the Apennine chain. In order to describe the evolution of the geodynamic processes that guided the formation of the Tyrrhenian basin and the Apennine chain we used the plate kinematics technique. Through careful observation of the regional structures we have divided the area of the Apennine Chain and the Tyrrhenian basin into polygons (crustal blocks or microplates) distinguished on the basis of the direction of the Tyrrhenian extension. The boundary between the polygons has been placed coinciding with the large structures that characterize the Tyrrhenian-Apennine area. The rotation poles of the individual polygons, in the frame of reference of the Sardo-Corso block, are based on the Tyrrhenian extension directions that characterize them. The velocity ratio between the polygons was determined by the slip vector of the structure (plate boundary) that separates them. To determine the rotation time of the polygons we used the stratigraphic records of the syn-rift sequences, while the rotation angle of the polygons is obtained comparing the crustal balance with the speed ratios. Finally, the kinematic framework obtained, included in the global rotation model, allowed us to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the central Mediterranean during the opening of the Tyrrhenian basin

Orchidaceae in Puglia (Italy): Consistency, Distribution, and Conservation

A study of the distribution of orchid species in Puglia, based on an analysis of 2084 bibliographic reports from 2000 to 2022, was carried out with the aim of revising and updating the information on the consistency of the Orchidaceae family in Puglia, with a special focus on assessing threatened species occurring inside and outside protected areas. The work presents a checklist of the Orchidaceae taxa (genera, species, and subspecies) found in the region, including observations on genera and species that present taxonomic challenges. A total of 113 taxa (i.e., species and subspecies), distributed across 16 genera, are listed in alphabetical order. The most representative genera were Ophrys (51 taxa), Serapias (15 taxa), and Epipactis (11 taxa). Additionally, 49 taxa (43.4%) were found to be endemic to Italy, with 21 of these, mostly belonging to the Ophrys genus, being exclusive to Puglia. Our study notes two different trends of distribution: a predominantly coastal distribution for orchid records located in southern Puglia (the Salento peninsula) and a more widespread distribution for the other provinces. Our study also shows that the greatest number of records locate orchids in protected areas with a positive correlation between their presence and habitats cited in Directive 92/43/EEC

Between Innovation and Conservation: The Narrow Path of User Interface Design for Digital Scholarly Editions

In 2016, the Edition Visualization Technology (EVT: evt.labcd.unipi.it/) team started the design phase necessary for the development of the next version of this tool aimed at easy publishing of TEI XML-based digital editions: the current version (EVT 1.2), in fact, only supports diplomatic transcriptions linked to the corresponding manuscript images; EVT 2.0 will fully support critical editions encoded according to the TEI parallel segmentation method. To reach this goal, a completely new approach based on the AngularJS framework and the MVC (Model View Controller) architectural pattern was necessary because the old architecture, relying on XSLT 2.0 transformations, was no longer flexible enough to meet all the UI and navigation requirements of critical editions. Furthermore, during the design phase we decided that in some cases keeping a layout inspired by traditional printed editions would be a great help for our final users. After a long but interesting development process, a beta version of EVT 2 is out: we believe that the UI layout and solutions we devised are both effective in the short term, for all the projects that will adopt EVT, and a significant contribution to the theoretical discussion revolving around the very concept of DSE

A New Southern North Atlantic Isochron Map: Insights Into the Drift of the Iberian Plate Since the Late Cretaceous

This paper presents a new southern North Atlantic plate model from Late Cretaceous to present, with the aim of constraining the kinematics of the Iberian plate during the last 83.5 Myr. This model is presented along with a detailed isochron map generated through the analysis of 3 aeromagnetic tracks and ~400 ship tracks from the National Centers for Environmental Information database. We present a new technique to obtain well‐constrained estimates of the Iberia‐North America plate motions from magnetic anomalies, overcoming the scarcity of large‐offset fracture zones and transform faults. We build an integrated kinematic model for NW Africa, Morocco, Iberia, Europe, and North America, which shows that the deformation is partitioned between Pyrenees and Betic‐Rif orogenic domain during the Late Cretaceous‐Oligocene time interval. In the Eastern Betics domain, the calculated amount of NW Africa‐Iberia convergence is ~80 km between 83.5 and 34 Ma, followed by ~150 km since the Oligocene. The motion of Iberia relative to Europe in the Central Pyrenees is characterized by overall NE directed transpressional motion during the Campanian and the Paleocene, followed by NW directed transpressional movement until the Lutetian and overall NNW directed convergence from Bartonian to Chattian. This motion occurs along the axis of the Bay of Biscay from the Santonian–Campanian boundary to the middle Priabonian, subsequently jumping to King's Trough at Anomaly 17 (36.62 Ma)

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