effect of intrathecal baclofen botulinum toxin type a and a rehabilitation programme on locomotor function after spinal cord injury a case report

Objective: a few studies have reported the use of botulinum toxin injections after spinal cord injury, as this is the gold standard to treat focal spasticity. We report such a case here. Case report: a 38-year-old woman who had become paraplegic and care-dependent secondary to cervico-thoracic intramedullary ependymoma, presented 8 months later with painful lower limb spasticity, which was being treated with oral anti-spastic and benzodiazepine drugs with no therapeutic effect. We treated the patient with intrathecal baclofen to reduce her spasticity and in order to avoid the major side-effects of high dosages of oral baclofen. after motor rehabilitation programmes, which included functional ele

SOM-Based Approach for the Analysis and Classification of Synchronous Impulsive Noise of an In-Ship PLC System

The interest in wideband data transmission over power line communications has increased rapidly. This technology offers a convenient and inexpensive medium to transmit data, reducing the number of cables. This advantage is particularly appealing in many fields, like the railway, naval, and aeronautical ones. Nevertheless, several problems have to be faced to obtain a high data rate. In particular, the presence of noise makes the transmission difficult, degrading the quality of received signals and prohibiting the full application of these communication frameworks. In this paper the behaviour of an in-ship powerline communication system is analyzed in the presence of synchronous periodic impulsive noise. Such noise is modelled at source and its effects on the transmission of wideband signals are evaluated by means of a simulation circuit model. The obtained results allow to identify the characteristics of the channel and the critical conditions due to noise. Subsequently, an unsupervised technique based on principal component analysis and fuzzy c-mean classifier detects the presence and classifies the specific noises. Numerical results show that the proposed approach enables to achieve this target accurately under different operating conditions, proving to be an effective tool to enhance the performances of the considered technology

One year of tropospheri clidar measurements of aerosol extinction and backscatter

The aerosol lidar system operational at IMAA-CNR in Tito Scalo (PZ) (Southern Italy, 40°36'N, 15°44'E, 820 m above sea level) is part of the EARLINET project. Systematic lidar measurements of aerosol backscatter and extinction in the troposphere have been performed since May 2000. Aerosol backscatter measurements were performed at both 355 nm and 532 nm, while aerosol extinction coeffi cient were retrieved from simultaneous N2 Raman backscatter signals at 386.6 nm. The observations were performed on a regular schedule of two night time measurements per week (around sunset) and one daytime measurement per week (around 13:00 UTC). Furthermore, special observations concerning Saharan dust outbreaks have been carried out. Starting in May 2000 the lidar measurements performed in Tito Scalo have been collected and analysed. Preliminary results regarding the fi rst year of measurements are reported. In particular, the evolution of the aerosol integrated backscatter and extinction as well as of the mean value of the lidar ratio in the whole aerosol layer is reported. Results show clear evidence of seasonal variation of the observed parameters, with higher values and greater variability during summertime

Growth methods of c-axis oriented MgB2 thin films by pulsed laser deposition

High quality MgB2 thin films have been obtained by pulsed laser deposition both on MgO and on Al2O3 substrates using different methods. In the standard two-step procedure, an amorphous precursor layer is deposited at room temperature starting both from stoichiometric target and from boron target: after this first step, it is annealed in magnesium atmosphere in order to crystallize the superconducting phase. The so obtained films show a strong c-axis orientation, evidenced by XRD analysis, a critical temperature up to 38 K and very high critical fields along the basal planes, up to 22T at 15K. Also an in situ one step technique for the realization of superconducting MgB2 thin films has been developed. In this case, the presence of an argon buffer gas during deposition is crucial and we observe a strong dependence of the quality of the deposited film on the background gas pressure. The influence of the Ar atmosphere has been confirmed by time and space-resolved spectroscopy measurements on the emission spectrum of the plume. The Ar pressure modifies strongly the plasma kinetics by promoting excitation and ionization of the plume species, especially of the most volatile Mg atoms, increasing their internal energy.Comment: Paper presented at Boromag Workshop, Genoa 17-19 June 2002, in press on SUS

Plasma plume effects on the conductivity of amorphous-LaAlO₃/SrTiO₃ interfaces grown by pulsed laser deposition in O₂ and Ar

Amorphous LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces exhibit metallic conductivity similarto those found for the extensively studied crystalline-LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces. Here, we investigate the conductivity of the amorphous-LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces grown in different pressures of O2 and Ar background gases. During the deposition, the LaAlO3 ablation plume is also studied, in situ, by fast photography and space-resolved optical emission spectroscopy. An interesting correlation between interfacial conductivity and kinetic energy of the Al atoms in the plume is observed: to assure conducting interfaces of amorphous-LaAlO3/SrTiO3, the kinetic energy of Al should be higher than 1 eV. Our findings add further insights on mechanisms leading to interfacial conductivity in SrTiO3-based oxide heterostructures

Is the Shroud of Turin in Relation to the Old Jerusalem Historical Earthquake?

Phillips and Hedges suggested, in the scientific magazine Nature (1989), that neutron radiation could be liable of a wrong radiocarbon dating, while proton radiation could be responsible of the Shroud body image formation. On the other hand, no plausible physical reason has been proposed so far to explain the radiation source origin, and its effects on the linen fibres. However, some recent studies, carried out by the first author and his Team at the Laboratory of Fracture Mechanics of the Politecnico di Torino, found that it is possible to generate neutron emissions from very brittle rock specimens in compression through piezonuclear fission reactions. Analogously, neutron flux increments, in correspondence to seismic activity, should be a result of the same reactions. A group of Russian scientists measured a neutron flux exceeding the background level by three orders of magnitude in correspondence to rather appreciable earthquakes (4th degree in Richter Scale). The authors consider the possibility that neutron emissions by earthquakes could have induced the image formation on Shroud linen fibres, trough thermal neutron capture by Nitrogen nuclei, and provided a wrong radiocarbon dating due to an increment in C(14,6)content. Let us consider that, although the calculated integral flux of 10^13 neutrons per square centimetre is 10 times greater than the cancer therapy dose, nevertheless it is100 times smaller than the lethal dose.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur