Dynamic Compaction Test on an Hydraulic Silty Sand Fill

Dynamic compaction resulted to be the most effective method to compact a very loose hydraulic silty sand fill, with a fine content from 25 to 90 per cent. Two levels of compaction energy were tested. The soil settlements enforced by these energies were verified with reference to the concept of saturation energy and by means of a simplified analysis of the physical model

Pulmonary and cardiac drugs: clinically relevant interactions

Chronic heart and lung diseases are very common in the elderly population. The combination of chronic heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is also common and, according to current guidelines, these patients should be treated for both diseases. In patients with heart failure, beta-blockers are very important drugs because their use is associated with significantly improved morbidity and mortality. These beneficial effects were documented in patients with and without COPD, although theoretically there is a risk for bronchoconstriction, particularly with non-beta1 selective blockers. In COPD patients, long-acting sympathomimetics (LABA) improve lung function, dyspnea, and quality of life and their combination with a beta-blocker makes sense from a pharmacological and a clinical point of view, because any potential arrhythmogenic effects of the LABA will be ameliorated by the beta-blocker. Inhaled tiotropium, a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA), has been extensively investigated and no safety concerns were reported in terms of cardiac adverse effects. The same applies for the other approved LAMA preparations and LAMA-LABA combinations. Severe COPD causes air-trapping with increasing pressures in the thorax, leading to limitations in blood return into the thorax from the periphery of the body. This causes a decrease in stroke volume and cardiac index and is associated with dyspnea. All these adverse effects can be ameliorated by potent anti-obstructive therapy as recently shown by means of a LABA-LAMA combination

Advancements in the Investigation of Vertical Profiles of Thunderstorm Outflows

The dynamic complexity and unpredictability of the occurrence of thunderstorms make it difficult to collect reliable and systematic measurements of this atmospheric phenomenon, which are definitely needed to evaluate its action on structures. The area of the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea is a \u201chot-spot\u201d for the genesis of severe potentially damaging wind phenomena, such as downbursts, whose occurrence in this geographical region is not well documented. In the context of the two European projects \u201cWind and Ports\u201d and \u201cWind, Ports and Sea\u201d, a large and complex wind monitoring network has been installed in this area. Since the years 2014-2015, this network is equipped with three LiDAR profilers which provide vertical scanning of the atmosphere up to 250 m above the ground level. All the wind profiles have been systematically analysed in order to detect the ones that can be referred to thunderstorm events. The aim of this study is to extend a first set of analyses up to mid-2018 to provide a preliminary investigation of the main parameters describing the non-synoptic events and a first classification of thunderstorm events into different subsets

Trends of influenza B during the 2010–2016 seasons in 2 regions of north and south Italy: The impact of the vaccine mismatch on influenza immunisation strategy

Influenza A and B viruses are responsible for respiratory infections, representing globally seasonal threats to human health. The 2 viral types often co-circulate and influenza B plays an important role in the spread of infection. A 6-year retrospective surveillance study was conducted between 2010 and 2016 in 2 large administrative regions of Italy, located in the north (Liguria) and in the south (Sicily) of the country, to describe the burden and epidemiology of both B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages in different healthcare settings. Influenza B viruses were detected in 5 of 6 seasonal outbreaks, exceeding influenza A during the season 2012–2013. Most of influenza B infections were found in children aged ≤ 14 y and significant differences were observed in the age-groups infected by the different lineages. B/Victoria strains prevailed in younger population than B/Yamagata, but also were more frequently found in the community setting. Conversely, B/Yamagata viruses were prevalent among hospitalized cases suggesting their potential role in the development of more severe disease. The relative proportions of viral lineages varied from year to year, resulting in different lineage-level mismatch for the B component of trivalent influenza vaccine. Our findings confirmed the need for continuous virological surveillance of seasonal epidemics and bring attention to the adoption of universal influenza immunization program in the childhood. The use of tetravalent vaccine formulations may be useful to improve the prevention and control of the influenza burden in general population

A Two-Step Approach to Tune the Micro and Nanoscale Morphology of Porous Niobium Oxide to Promote Osteointegration

We present a two-step surface modification process to tailor the micro and nano morphology of niobium oxide layers. Niobium was firstly anodized in spark regime in a Ca-and P-containing solution and subsequently treated by acid etching. The effects of anodizing time and applied potential on the surface morphology is investigated with SEM and AFM, complemented by XPS compositional analysis. Anodizing with a limiting potential of 250 V results in the fast growth of oxide layers with a homogeneous distribution of micro-sized pores. Cracks are, however, observed on 250 V grown layers. Limiting the anodizing potential to 200 V slows down the oxide growth, increasing the anodizing time needed to achieve a uniform pore coverage but produces fracture-free oxide layers. The surface nano morphology is further tuned by a subsequent acid etching process that leads to the formation of nano-sized pits on the anodically grown oxide surface. In vitro tests show that the etching-induced nanostructure effectively promotes cell adhesion and spreading onto the niobium oxide surface

Surfactant-like Effect and Dissolution of Ultrathin Fe Films on Ag(001)

The phase immiscibility and the excellent matching between Ag(001) and Fe(001) unit cells (mismatch 0.8 %) make Fe/Ag growth attractive in the field of low dimensionality magnetic systems. Intermixing could be drastically limited at deposition temperatures as low as 140-150 K. The film structural evolution induced by post-growth annealing presents many interesting aspects involving activated atomic exchange processes and affecting magnetic properties. Previous experiments, of He and low energy ion scattering on films deposited at 150 K, indicated the formation of a segregated Ag layer upon annealing at 550 K. Higher temperatures led to the embedding of Fe into the Ag matrix. In those experiments, information on sub-surface layers was attained by techniques mainly sensitive to the topmost layer. Here, systematic PED measurements, providing chemical selectivity and structural information for a depth of several layers, have been accompanied with a few XRD rod scans, yielding a better sensitivity to the buried interface and to the film long range order. The results of this paper allow a comparison with recent models enlightening the dissolution paths of an ultra thin metal film into a different metal, when both subsurface migration of the deposit and phase separation between substrate and deposit are favoured. The occurrence of a surfactant-like stage, in which a single layer of Ag covers the Fe film is demonstrated for films of 4-6 ML heated at 500-550 K. Evidence of a stage characterized by the formation of two Ag capping layers is also reported. As the annealing temperature was increased beyond 700 K, the surface layers closely resembled the structure of bare Ag(001) with the residual presence of subsurface Fe aggregates.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Maximum temperature and solar radiation as predictors of bipolar patient admission in an emergency psychiatric ward

Environmental variables can regulate behavior in healthy subjects. Recently, some authors investigated the role of meteorological variables in bipolar patients with an impact on both the onset and course of bipolar disorder (BD). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of meteorological variables and other indexes in bipolar hospitalized patients. We examined all patients admitted to the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit of San Luigi Gonzaga Hospital, Orbassano (Turin, Italy) from September 2013 to August 2015, collecting several socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. Seven hundred and thirty patients were included. Compared to the day of admission of control individuals, patients with BD were admitted on a day that presented higher minimum, medium, and maximum temperature, higher maximum humidity, higher solar radiation, and higher hours of sunshine. After logistic regression analysis, admissions to the emergency psychiatric ward due to a primary diagnosis of BD were associated with maximum temperature and solar radiation. The current study provides a novel perspective on the question surrounding seasonal mood patterns in patients with BD. A greater awareness of all possible precipitating factors is needed to inform self-management and psycho-educational programs as well as to improve resilience regarding affective recurrences in the clinical practice

Level-3 Calorimetric Resolution available for the Level-1 and Level-2 CDF Triggers

As the Tevatron luminosity increases sophisticated selections are required to be efficient in selecting rare events among a very huge background. To cope with this problem, CDF has pushed the offline calorimeter algorithm reconstruction resolution up to Level 2 and, when possible, even up to Level 1, increasing efficiency and, at the same time, keeping under control the rates. The CDF Run II Level 2 calorimeter trigger is implemented in hardware and is based on a simple algorithm that was used in Run I. This system has worked well for Run II at low luminosity. As the Tevatron instantaneous luminosity increases, the limitation due to this simple algorithm starts to become clear: some of the most important jet and MET (Missing ET) related triggers have large growth terms in cross section at higher luminosity. In this paper, we present an upgrade of the Level 2 Calorimeter system which makes the calorimeter trigger tower information available directly to a CPU allowing more sophisticated algorithms to be implemented in software. Both Level 2 jets and MET can be made nearly equivalent to offline quality, thus significantly improving the performance and flexibility of the jet and MET related triggers. However in order to fully take advantage of the new L2 triggering capabilities having at Level 1 the same L2 MET resolution is necessary. The new Level-1 MET resolution is calculated by dedicated hardware. This paper describes the design, the hardware and software implementation and the performance of the upgraded calorimeter trigger system both at Level 2 and Level 1.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures,34th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Philadelphia, 200