The “Eyeballing” technique : an emerging and alerting trend of alcohol misuse

Alternative methods of alcohol consumption have recently emerged among adolescents and young adults, including the alcohol “eyeballing”, which consist in the direct pouring of alcoholic substances on the ocular surface epithelium. In a context of drug and behavioural addictions change, “eyeballing” can be seen as one of the latest and potentially highly risky new trends. We aimed to analyze the existing medical literature as well as online material on this emerging trend of alcohol misusePeer reviewedFinal Published versio

asymptomatic brownish reticulate patch on the left thigh

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allergic contact dermatitis caused by metals in blackboard chalk a case report

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L'area delle risorgive nel sistema insediativo mesolitico: alcuni esempi dal pordenonese

The authors present the work undertaken on the lithic material collected in the spring area between Orcenico Superiore and Savorgnano (Pordenone-Italy). The sites are located on an NE-SW elongated Lateglacial gravel ridge, which to the present day is to be considered a stable area (i.e. preserved from alluvial and erosive action of Tagliamento and Meduna rivers). Different periods are represented in the lithic industries, spanning from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. This paper presents the results of the study carried out on the Mesolithic industries, mainly to be ascribed to the Castelnovian tradition. The typological composition of the assemblages shows different activities which could be associated with residential camps, without any particular specialization although this kind of interpretation could be biased by the non systematic nature of the findings. Different operational chains were in place, aiming to produce either bladelets or flakes. Raw materials are mostly of local origin, although few pieces were brought in from the Prealps, showing a North-South mobility along river routes. At the same time, there are scarce lithic materials imported from the upper part of the Udine plain, which is rich in good quality flint pebbles. Further technological and typological differences show a rather neat separation between sites on either sides of Tagliamento river. When we consider the distribution of Mesolithic sites in Friuli, a logistical settlement system seems to emerge: bigger sites are located at the edge of ecologically differentiated areas in connection with stable water sources such as the spring area between Orcenico and S. Vito al Tagliamento and the piedmont; complementary to those, task-related short-term sites characterised by less materials and fewer lithic types are found in the Prealps at middle altitude

A possible tremorgenic mycotoxicosis by Roquefortine C in a bovine herd

A total of 15 beef cows and calves were referred for history of neurological signs. The animals (12/15 Chianina breed, 3/15 Limousine) were grazing in 300 ha area, fed with grass and hay. Inspection of the hay reveled macroscopic alterations, consisting of diffuse and heavy mold contamination of many hay bales. Due to the not cooperative attitude, the animals were only visually examined in the field; the neurological signs observed were ataxia, intentional head tremors and muscle twitching. Only 3 calves with severe neurological signs were housed in a medication area and underwent a complete clinical exam. All 3 calves showed intentional head tremors and muscle twitching; 1/3 presented severe ataxia and stiffness gait, while 2/3 calves were recumbent and unable to rise. The most important clinical data were: hyperthermia, tachypnea, tachycardia and long capillary refill time. The neurological examination showed deficits of V and VII cranial nerves. Calves could swallow, but they were unable to grab the food. Based on history and clinical examination the following differential diagnoses were considered: tremorgenic mycotoxicosis, nervous ketosis, nervous BVD form, BHV1-5, Listeriosis and WMD. Blood samples were collected for CBC count and biochemistry panel (TP, urea, creatinine, total and direct bilirubin, GGT, AST, CPK, Mg, Se and vit E), urinalysis was performed for ketone bodies. Calves were also tested for infectious diseases (Listeriosis, BVD, BHV 1-5). Multiple samples of altered hay were analyzed for mycotoxins and hay balls were removed in all animals’ stock. The grazing animals recovered spontaneously within 1 week along with 2/3 hospitalized calves, while 1/3 calf was euthanized due to poor general conditions. CBC, biochemistry panel, vit E and oligo-minerals resulted within normal ranges and no positivity for infectious agents were detected. Food analysis showed high concentrations of roquefortine C (RC): 345 μg/kg DM. Presence of RC in livestock food is highly reported, in particular in visibly moldy areas (1). RC intoxication causes anorexia, paralysis and several reports attribute it neurotoxic properties (2). In mice experimental intoxications induced muscle contractions, ataxia, prostration and intermittent seizures. RC intoxication, resembling penitrem A (PA) intoxication, has been reported in dogs. Moreover, RC is considered a sensitive biomarker for PA exposure. PA is a tremorgenic fungal toxin which intoxication causes ataxia, tachypnea, and sustained tremors. The pathophysiological mechanism by which mycotoxins affect the CNS is unknown but the biochemical lesions are reversible. Diagnosis is based on the clinical signs, demonstration of the mycotoxins in the feed and identification of the fungal elements in blood and feces. Affected animals recover completely when they are removed from infected pastures. Based on neurological signs, recovery after altered food removing and results of food analysis, the diagnosis of tremorgenic intoxication was hypothesized. Limits of this report are: lack of PA dosage in the food and lack of RC and PA evaluation in blood and feces of affected animals

Bipolar polaron pair recombination in P3HT/PCBM solar cells

The unique properties of organic semiconductors make them versatile base materials for many applications ranging from light emitting diodes to transistors. The low spin-orbit coupling typical for carbon-based materials and the resulting long spin lifetimes give rise to a large influence of the electron spin on charge transport which can be exploited in spintronic devices or to improve solar cell efficiencies. Magnetic resonance techniques are particularly helpful to elucidate the microscopic structure of paramagnetic states in semiconductors as well as the transport processes they are involved in. However, in organic devices the nature of the dominant spin-dependent processes is still subject to considerable debate. Using multi-frequency pulsed electrically detected magnetic resonance (pEDMR), we show that the spin-dependent response of P3HT/PCBM solar cells at low temperatures is governed by bipolar polaron pair recombination involving the positive and negative polarons in P3HT and PCBM, respectively, thus excluding a unipolar bipolaron formation as the main contribution to the spin-dependent charge transfer in this temperature regime. Moreover the polaron-polaron coupling strength and the recombination times of polaron pairs with parallel and antiparallel spins are determined. Our results demonstrate that the pEDMR pulse sequences recently developed for inorganic semiconductor devices can very successfully be transferred to the study of spin and charge transport in organic semiconductors, in particular when the different polarons can be distinguished spectrally

Use of the breeding technique to estimate the structure of the analysis 'errors of the day'

A 3D-variational data assimilation scheme for a quasi-geostrophic channel model (Morss, 1998) is used to study the structure of the background error and its relationship to the corresponding bred vectors. The "true" evolution of the model atmosphere is defined by an integration of the model and "rawinsonde observations" are simulated by randomly perturbing the true state at fixed locations. Case studies using different observational densities are considered to compare the evolution of the Bred Vectors to the spatial structure of the background error. In addition, the bred vector dimension (BV-dimension), defined by Patil et al. (2001) is applied to the bred vectors. It is found that after 3-5 days the bred vectors develop well organized structures which are very similar for the two different norms (enstrophy and streamfunction) considered in this paper. When 10 surrogate bred vectors (corresponding to different days from that of the background error) are used to describe the local patterns of the background error, the explained variance is quite high, about 85-88%, indicating that the statistical average properties of the bred vectors represent well those of the background error. However, a subspace of 10 bred vectors corresponding to the time of the background error increased the percentage of explained variance to 96-98%, with the largest percentage when the background errors are large. These results suggest that a statistical basis of bred vectors collected over time can be used to create an effective constant background error covariance for data assimilation with 3D-Var. Including the "errors of the day" through the use of bred vectors corresponding to the background forecast time can bring an additional significant improvement

Fractal Markets Hypothesis and the Global Financial Crisis: Scaling, Investment Horizons and Liquidity

We investigate whether fractal markets hypothesis and its focus on liquidity and invest- ment horizons give reasonable predictions about dynamics of the financial markets during the turbulences such as the Global Financial Crisis of late 2000s. Compared to the mainstream efficient markets hypothesis, fractal markets hypothesis considers financial markets as com- plex systems consisting of many heterogenous agents, which are distinguishable mainly with respect to their investment horizon. In the paper, several novel measures of trading activity at different investment horizons are introduced through scaling of variance of the underlying processes. On the three most liquid US indices - DJI, NASDAQ and S&P500 - we show that predictions of fractal markets hypothesis actually fit the observed behavior quite well.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Fuzzy Interval NEt present value

Il working paper è inserito nell'archivio RePEc. http://ideas.repec.org/p/vnm/wpaper/170.htm