Review adverse effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids: A literature review

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs) are a large group of molecules including endoge-nously produced androgens, such as testosterone, as well as synthetically manufactured derivatives. AAS use is widespread due to their ability to improve muscle growth for aesthetic purposes and athletes’ performance, minimizing androgenic effects. AAS use is very popular and 1–3% of US inhabitants have been estimated to be AAS users. However, AASs have side effects, involving all organs, tissues and body functions, especially long-term toxicity involving the cardiovascular system and the reproductive system, thereby, their abuse is considered a public health issue. The aim of the proposed review is to highlight the most recent evidence regarding the mechanisms of action of AASs and their unwanted effects on organs and lifestyle, as well as suggesting that AAS misuse and abuse lead to adverse effects in all body tissues and organs. Oxidative stress, apoptosis, and protein synthesis alteration are common mechanisms involved in AAS-related damage in the whole body. The cardiovascular system and the reproductive system are the most frequently involved apparatuses. Epidemiology as well as the molecular and pathological mechanisms involved in the neuropsychiatric side-effects of AAS abuse are still unclear, further research is needed in this field. In addition, diagnostically reliable tests for AAS abuse should be standardized. In this regard, to prevent the use of AASs, public health measures in all settings are crucial. These measures consist of improved knowledge among healthcare workers, proper doping screening tests, educational interventions, and updated legislation

Factors related to women’s psychological distress during the covid-19 pandemic: Evidence from a two-wave longitudinal study

Background. A growing body of research has highlighted the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women’s mental health. Previous studies showed that women have higher levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD, and worse psychological adjustment than men, which also persisted after the earlier phase of the pandemic. This study aimed to evaluate changes in women’s psychological distress during the pandemic and to evaluate the factors that have a more significant impact in predicting women’s psychological distress. Methods. This two-wave longitudinal study (T1 = Italian first lockdown, and T2 = second phase, when the restrictive measures were eased) involved 893 women (Mage = 36.45, SD = 14.48). Participants provided demographic and health data as well as measures of psychological distress, emotion regulation processes, and ability to tolerate uncertainty. Results. No significant changes were found in women’s psychological distress between T1 and T2, i.e., during and after the first lockdown. Lower social stability status and higher maladaptive emotional coping predicted high psychological distress. Conclusions. Results showed that modifiable psychological variables play a central role in predicting distress and indicated that emotion regulation interventions might be helpful in increasing psychological resilience and mitigating the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic within the female population

La vegetazione dell’isola di S. Andrea (Gallipoli - Lecce).

A cura di Bon M., Sburlino G., Zuccarello V

Mathematica and Didactical Innovation

A package for the education in mathematics focuses on the study of a conic is presented. The package is structured in an hypertextual way, including a part of theory and a guided lab for the practical session.The most meaningful innovation is given by the veri cation routines. The user may solve exercises by hand and check the solutions he/she nds using two veri cation functions

MoMaMath

Momamath è stato registrato in data 02-05-2002, con numero progressivo 002264, ordinativo D002939, del Registro Pubblico Speciale per i programmi per elaboratore, presso la SIAE. Momamath è stato pubblicato a Fisciano (SA) il 03-11-2001 ed è un software applicativo di genere matematico

Synthesis and characterization of new chiral oligothiophenes for innovative optoelectronic applications

In recent years, -conjugated polymers and oligomers have found considerable attention as organic semiconductor in the field of optoelectronics; in this field a very important role is played by oligothiophene-based systems. Their fundamental optical and electrical properties (light absorption and emission, charge transport, exciton transfer, etc.) depend not only on their chemical structure and confor-mation assumed, but also on the supramolecular interactions and nano/mesoscale organi-zation in the solid-state1. Chirality represents a way of controlling supramolecular aggre-gation of these systems: the introduction of chiral groups in their structure can drive them to organize into architectures with chiral geometries, where a perfect alignment between proximate chains is disfavoured with respect to a twisted arrangement. Moreover, non-racemic chiral -conjugated systems can be studied using chiroptical spectroscopic tech-niques, in particular the electronic circular dichroism (ECD), which give access to a range of structural information otherwise not observable with other common spectroscopies. However, more importantly, these compounds may be used as chiral organic semi-conductors in novel optoelectronic applications: circularly polarized light sensors2, OFET able to discriminate enantiomers3, spin filters4, etc. In light of this, we designed and synthesized a set of new chiral oligothiophenes for the realization of some innovative optoelectronic devices