PRIMI RISULTATI DI UN INDAGINE SULLO STATO DELLE SISTEMAZIONI IDRAULICO-FORESTALI NEL BACINO DELL’ARNO

Il presente lavoro è relativo ai risultati ottenuti con il primo stato d’avanzamento di una ricerca sullo stato delle Sistemazioni Idraulico-Forestali per assegnate aree di indagine comprese nel bacino del fiume Arno affidata dall’ Autorità di Bacino del Fiume Arno al Dipartimento di Ingegneria Agraria e Forestale dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze. Innanzi tutto, è stata condotta un’analisi preventiva, mediante un database, di documentazione relativa alle opere idrauliche già censite in precedenti lavori (prof. Grazi) con identificazione della posizione geografica delle opere stesse con l’ausilio di software GIS. A questa prima fase sono seguiti la predisposizione di una opportuna scheda di rilievo (sia cartacea sia elettronica) e quindi sopralluoghi in campo condotti mediante l’ausilio di un GPS collegato a computer palmare per il supporto cartografico di base. Rilievi di dettaglio sono stati condotti nei torrenti dell’area del Mugello, già oggetto di studi risalenti a una trentina di anni fa per la valutazione delle pendenze di compensazione (Falciai et al.) che sono stati utilizzati spesso in letteratura (Ferro et al., Pica et al., etc.). Con riferimento ad altre zone campione del bacino (es. Casentino e Area Fiorentina), la documentazione storica ed il sopralluogo in campo (su base statistica) ha avuto lo scopo di rintracciare le opere esistenti e verificare l’attendibilità e la confrontabilità dei vari censimenti eseguiti anche da altri Enti preposti. In particolare si è analizzato il dimensionamento delle opere ed il loro stato attuale di conservazione ed efficienza, confrontandolo con quanto riportato in eventuali elaborati progettuali e nei censimenti precedenti. Eventuali danneggiamenti dei manufatti possono essere derivati dalle valutazioni in sede progettuale, da scarsa o inesistente manutenzione o da mutate caratteristiche in alveo e nel bacino. Per avere qualche indicazione in proposito si è valutata la portata di progetto a partire dalle dimensioni delle gavete considerate come stramazzi in parete grossa e se ne è stimato il tempo di ritorno, mediante i modelli AlTo (Regione Toscana) e Idrarno (Autorità di Bacino). Questa fase ha richiesto un lavoro preventivo di queries spaziali che hanno lo scopo di attribuire il codice dell’asta a cui appartengono le opere idrauliche in esame (all’interno del reticolo idrografico del modello AlTo e all’interno del reticolo “Sistema Acque” dell’Autorità di Bacino dell’Arno). Questa operazione consente, inoltre, il collegamento tra il contenuto informativo del geodatabase dell’Autorità di Bacino con il sistema di regionalizzazione delle portate di piena della Regione Toscana. Mediante la misura delle caratteristiche dimensionali dell’opera si sono cercate di ricavare anche indicazioni statistiche riguardo alla pendenza di compensazione dei corsi d’acqua in esame. Le verifiche in campo ha permesso anche una descrizione delle condizioni generali dell’alveo in cui sono situate le opere e dei versanti siti in prossimità delle opere stesse. I dati raccolti sono stati immessi in un geodatabase opportunamente costruito secondo lo standard di quello esistente presso l’Autorità di Bacino del Fiume Arno e quindi elaborati per la ricerca delle relazioni tra le caratteristiche delle opere e la pendenza attuale dell’alveo nonché la stima della necessità, per i corsi d’acqua esaminati, di opere atte a garantire la continuità fluviale per la ittiofauna (Pini Prato e Barneschi)

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on pornography habits: a global analysis of Google Trends

As the COVID-19 spread globally, social distancing, self-isolation/quarantine, and national lockdowns have become crucial to control the pandemic. However, these measures may also lead to increases in social isolation, loneliness, and stress, which can alter the consumption of pornography habits. The aim of the study was thus to explore the interest pattern in pornography and coronavirus-themed pornography during the COVID-19 outbreak. Google Trends\uae was employed to determine the most popular porn websites (Porn, XNXX, PornHub, xVideos, and xHamster), and coronavirus-themed pornography worldwide and in six nations with different COVID-19 outbreak and self-isolation recommendations. We analyzed every search trend on Google\uae from January 9, 2020 to May 25, 2020 using \u201cjoint point regression analysis\u201d. Comparisons of week relative search volume (WRSV) and temporal patterns were analyzed to assess the change of interest in search terms during nations lockdowns. Paired t-test was used to compare WRSV values among the porn websites during the national lockdowns and the equivalent timespan of the weeks in the previous 4 years. The research trend of almost every keyword increased with significant inflection points for those nations with a straight \u201cstay at home orders\u201d (China, Italy, Spain, and France). \u201cPornHub\u201d and \u201cPorn\u201d showed the highest increase of interest worldwide with an average weekend percentage change (AWPC) of 4.9 and 3.8, respectively. The mean WRSV for keywords in USA and Sweden did not show a similar increase as the other nations. The WRSV percentage change with the historical data had a peak during the straight nations\u2019 lockdowns (p < 0.01). All the nations had a significant increase in WRSV coronavirus-themed pornography for each keyword (p < 0.01) with an AWPC, ranging worldwide between 18.5 and 61.8 (p < 0.01), after the beginning of self-quarantine. As strengths this study uses a big data technology to collect worldwide trend of interest, however, data are anonymous and do not allow analysis of subpopulation groups. In conclusion, we demonstrated an increased interest in pornography and coronavirus-themed pornography after the outbreak of COVID-19 in nations with a straight \u201cstay at home orders\u201d

Time Course of Corticospinal Excitability and Autonomic Function Interplay during and Following Monopolar tDCS

While polarity-specific after-effects of monopolar transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on corticospinal excitability are well-documented, modulation of vital parameters due to current spread through the brainstem is still a matter of debate, raising potential concerns about its use through the general public, as well as for neurorehabilitation purposes. We monitored online and after-effects of monopolar tDCS (primary motor cortex) in 10 healthy subjects by adopting a neuronavigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)/tDCS combined protocol. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) together with vital parameters [e.g., blood pressure, heart-rate variability (HRV), and sympathovagal balance] were recorded and monitored before, during, and after anodal, cathodal, or sham tDCS. Ten MEPs, every 2.5-min time windows, were recorded from the right first dorsal interosseous (FDI), while 5-min epochs were used to record vital parameters. The protocol included 15 min of pre-tDCS and of online tDCS (anodal, cathodal, or sham). After-effects were recorded for 30 min. We showed a polarity-independent stabilization of cortical excitability level, a polarity-specific after-effect for cathodal and anodal stimulation, and an absence of persistent excitability changes during online stimulation. No significant effects on vital parameters emerged both during and after tDCS, while a linear increase in systolic/diastolic blood pressure and HRV was observed during each tDCS condition, as a possible unspecific response to experimental demands. Taken together, current findings provide new insights on the safety of monopolar tDCS, promoting its application both in research and clinical settings. Introduction Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques are increasingly used as potential treatments for numerous neurological and psychiatric conditions (1–5). The rationale behind the therapeutic use of such techniques is that both repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may produce changes in the cortical excitability of the stimulated neural networks, outlasting the stimulation period. While rTMS mainly induces long-lasting changes in synaptic efficacy (6), tDCS changes cortical excitability in a polarity-specific manner by modifying the intracellular ion concentrations in the cortical tissue, through an action at the level of the membrane potential: cathodal tDCS (C-tDCS) induces inhibition of the stimulated network, while anodal stimulation (A-tDCS) acts in an opposite way (1–4, 7, 8). Additional action mechanisms of tDCS such as changes in synaptic strength (9) or changes in the resting activity of glial cells (10) have been also documented. tDCS-induced changes in cortical excitability may have positive behavioral consequences, if the dysfunction of the NIBS-conditioned network is associated with the generation/maintenance of a given symptom. Besides having an important role in investigating the physiology of motor (7, 11–14) and visual areas (15–17), where changes of cortical excitability can be directly indexed by neurophysiological parameters, tDCS research has also shown to have a strong translational power, with promising scenarios concerning new treatment options for neurological and psychiatric disorders. Moreover, tDCS devices are freely available on the web market for unsupervised home usage as neuroenhancers (18), opening a worrisome scenario by a medical and social perspective (18, 19). Specifically, tDCS can be delivered by adopting bipolar (4, 7) or monopolar (20, 21) montages: the former implies an “active” (either cathode or anode) and a “reference” electrode placed on the scalp surface, while the latter uses a “reference” placed on an extracephalic target (shoulder, leg, arm, etc.). In this case, the induced electric field may flow toward brainstem structures, thereby potentially affecting the function of the neural centers, which regulate autonomic nervous system functions (22). However, the effects of tDCS techniques on vital parameters as blood pressure, heart-rate variability (HRV), sympathetic/parasympathetic balance, and respiration frequency, are still controversial (23). While a potential modulation of sympathetic activity via the stimulation of motor cortex (24), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (25), as well parietal (26), occipital (27), and temporal (28) lobes have been already demonstrated, the variability in terms of electrode montages, study design (cross-sectional vs. parallel), blinding, and tDCS modality applied across studies posit the need for further investigations (19). Furthermore, whether tDCS exerts its effect over the autonomic system mostly during or right after its delivery is still a matter of debate (29), as well as the reliability of tridimensional head models of local current field as vehicle to investigate the aforementioned issues (5). Finally, it is noteworthy that the identification of potential effect of tDCS over CNS structures that govern autonomic nervous function may candidate several pathological conditions as potential targets for treatments, like arterial hypertension (30), vasovagal syncope (31), obesity (29), diabetes (32), and migraine (33), while holding a drawback in terms of its application in neurological and psychiatric population in which such secondary effects could represent a limit instead. Therefore, to originally investigate the online and after-effects of monopolar tDCS on autonomic functions, we simultaneously acquired corticospinal excitability levels and vital parameter data before, during, and after tDCS using a combined TMS–tDCS set-up. Differently from previous investigations available to date, this approach allowed us to originally investigate the effect of tDCS on vital parameters in light of a net measure of its effect on cortical excitability. By monitoring such dynamics through the entire experiment, we will be able to describe the possible modulation of vital parameters as a response to the fluctuations in cortical excitability induced by tDCS. Materials and Methods Participants Ten tDCS-naïve and fully right-handed healthy volunteers with normal neurological examinations took part in the study (five female; mean age 26 ± 3 years). The experiment was performed with the approval of the Ethical Committee of Siena University. An informed consent was obtained from all subjects according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Following a cross-over design, all participants blindly underwent three separate sessions of randomized A-tDCS, C-tDCS, and sham tDCS (S-tDCS) of the dominant primary motor cortex (left M1), each spaced about 1 week apart (5–7 days). They sat comfortably in a reclining chair with their arm fully relaxed in a natural position and their hands pronated on a pillow. Electrophysiological and Vital Parameter Recordings Each recording session started with the identification of the left M1 by searching for the hotspot of the contralateral first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle, according to standard single-pulse focal coil TMS session parameters (34). The active tDCS electrode was then applied to the left M1. Then, electrodes for the cardiovascular parameters recordings were applied (35). The TMS hotspot was checked again in order to ensure a stable set-up immediately before the experiment began. The whole time course of the experiment is displayed in Figure 1. In order to guarantee the gold-standard set-up for minimization of trial-to-trial variability of cortical excitability, we used a TMS neuronavigation system throughout the entire experiment, which is per se an original approach into the investigation of tDCS-induced changes in cortical excitability

Relevance of the Endoscopic Evaluation in the Diagnosis of Bladder Pain Syndrome/Interstitial Cystitis

Objective: To assess the relevance of the endoscopic evaluation in clinically suspected cases of Bladder Pain Syndrome/Interstitial Cystitis (BPS/IC), using ESSIC criteria, established in 2008 by the European Society for the Study of Interstitial Cystitis (ESSIC). Methods: We included all patients who underwent endoscopic evaluation between January 01, 2015 and October 31, 2019 for clinical suspicion of BPS/IC. Collected data included demographic and baseline clinical features, endoscopic appearance (prior and after hydrodistension), and bladder wall biopsy results, both defined according to ESSIC criteria. Data were cross tabulated to define ESSIC phenotypes, while subgroups and multivariate analyses were carried out to assess the influence of clinical variables on ESSIC phenotypes. Results: Fifty-two subjects were included, mainly women (92%). Median age at evaluation was 45 (32.9-58.2) years. At hydrodistension, 21 patients (42%) had positive and 29 (58%) had negative findings. Grade 2-3 glomerulations were found in 18 patients, while Hunner lesions were reported only in 1 patient. Positive results at biopsy were found in 24 pts (51.1%), while negative in 23 (48.9%). Overall, the positive and negative concordance between hydrodistension and biopsy results was 78%. No significant differences in ESSIC subtypes were found after stratification based on clinical features and at multivariate analysis. Retrospective design is the main limitation. Conclusion: Cystoscopy with hydrodistension and biopsy do have a role in the diagnostic pathway of BPS/IC. However, results should be considered in the clinical context of the individual patient

Real-Life Data on the Efficacy of Canakinumab in Patients with Adult-Onset Still's Disease

Background. Interleukin-1 inhibition has revealed to be a successful treatment approach for patients with adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD). However, real-life experience is focused on the use of anakinra, while data about canakinumab (CAN) are mainly based on case reports and small case series. Patients and Methods. Patients classified with AOSD according to Yamaguchi criteria and treated with CAN were consecutively enrolled. Their clinical and therapeutic data were retrospectively collected and statistically analysed to assess the role of CAN as a therapeutic opportunity in AOSD patients in terms of clinical and laboratory disease control along with corticosteroid-sparing effect. Results. Nine AOSD patients (8 females and 1 male) treated with CAN for 15.00±12.3 months were enrolled. Resolution of clinical manifestations was reported in 8/9 cases at the 3-month assessment; a significant decrease in the number of tender joints (p=0.009), swollen joints (p=0.027), and disease activity score on 28 joints-C-reactive protein (DAS28-CRP) (p=0.044) was observed during the study period. The systemic score of disease activity significantly decreased at the 3-month and 6-month assessments and at the last visit compared to the start of treatment (p=0.028, p=0.028, and p=0.018, respectively). The daily corticosteroid dosage was significantly reduced at the 3-month and at the last follow-up visits (p=0.017 and p=0.018, respectively). None of the patients experienced adverse events or severe adverse events during the follow-up. Conclusions. CAN has shown prompt and remarkable effectiveness in controlling AOSD activity in a real-life contest, with a significant glucocorticoid-sparing effect and an excellent safety profile