1,060 research outputs found
IDP -Illuminated Dante Project: un archivio e database per la più antica iconografia dantesca (secc. XIV-XV)
No full textNato nel 2015 e legato al Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Napoli "Federico II" e al Dipartimento di Lettere e Beni Culturali dell’Università della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", nonché a diversi Enti e Istituzioni nazionali e internazionali, IDP-Illuminated Dante Project mira alla creazione di un archivio di codici danteschi miniati tra Trecento e Quattrocento, con relativo database open access, che potrà costituire un utile strumento di comprensione dei complessi meccanismi che regolano il rapporto tra versi danteschi e iconografia. Il contributo presenta la struttura del database IDP a partire dalle articolazioni delle griglie in ambiente back-end
Correction to: Surgical correction of double major adolescent idiopathic scoliosis
No full textUnfortunately, the affiliation of the author group has been incorrectly published in original version. The complete correct affiliation of all authors should read as follows
How useful is the rapid urease test for evaluating the success of Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy?
No full textThe success of eradication therapy for Helicobacter pylori infection is usually determined by noninvasive tests; however, sometimes
these tests are not possible and an invasive test is required such as the rapid urease test (RUT), or histology. AIM: To evaluate and compare the accuracy of the RUT with that of histology for determining H. pylori eradication after therapy. DESIGN: this European, prospective study included patients who fulfilled the Maastricht criteria for H. pylori infection. All patients had received
H. pylori eradication therapy with twice-daily omeprazole (20 mg) and twice-daily amoxicillin (100 mg) and clarithromycin (250 mg or 500 mg) or metronidazole (400 mg) for 1 week. Upper
gastrointestinal endoscopy was performed in all patients 1 month after completion of H. pylori eradication therapy. Use of PPIs or
histamine-receptor antagonists was prohibited in the week before endoscopy. During endoscopy, biopsies were taken for histologic
evaluation and the RUT—two biopsies were taken 3 cm from the pylorus from the greater curvature of the antrum, and two biopsies were taken from the greater curvature in the middle of the corpus. The results of the RUT were read at 1 h, 3 h and 24 h after performing the test. Biopsy samples for histology were stained
with hematoxylin and eosin, and Giemsa stain. Gastrointestinal pathologists, who were blinded to the RUT results, reviewed histologic How useful is the rapid urease test for evaluating the success of Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy? data. Agreement between the results obtained with the RUT and those obtained with histology was assessed. OUTCOME: The primary outcome measures were the eradication of H. pylori and agreement between
diagnostic tests. RESULTS In total, 232 patients were included. The results of histology and the RUT from antrum biopsies showed that
H. pylori was eradicated in 181 patients, and 51 patients remained
H. pylori- positive. For biopsies taken from the antrum, agreement between the RUT and histology was excellent (94% k 0.81 [95% CI
0.77–0.85]); the sensitivity and specificity of the RUT at this biopsy location was 80.4% (95% CI 79.5–80.9) and 98.3% (95% CI 97.8–
98.85%), respectively. The results of histology and the RUT from corpus biopsies showed that H. pylori was eradicated in 185 patients, and 47 patients remained H. pylori-positive. For biopsies taken from the corpus, agreement between the RUT and histology was excellent (97% k 0.87 [95%CI 84.6–85.6]; the sensitivity
and specificity of the RUT at this biopsy location was 85.1% (95% CI 84.6–85.6) and 100%, respectively. The results of histology and the RUT from antrum and corpus biopsies showed that H. pylori was eradicated in 177 patients, and 55 patients remained H. pylori-positive. Pooled data analysis revealed that agreement between the two invasive tests was excellent (86% k 0.84 [95% CI 0.80–0.88]); the overall sensitivity and specificity of the RUT test was
83.6% (95% CI 83.1–84.1) and 99.4% (95% CI 98.9–99.9), respectively. CONCLUSION The eradication of H. pylori after therapy can be accurately determined with the RUT using two biopsies taken from the antrum and corpus
A new 24 h ELISA culture based method for Helicobacter pylori chemosusceptibility
No full textBackground Clarithromycin (CH) and metronidazole (MZ) are routinely used in Helicobacter pylori treatment regimes. Recently, treatment with these antibiotics has been reported to fail in >30% of patients due to increasing resistance. The common chemosusceptibility methods are cumbersome and take up to 14 days. Chemosusceptibility of H pylori is therefore rarely checked.
Aim To develop a rapid susceptibility test (RST) for H pylori.
Methods Preliminary experiments were performed to find a broth medium able to support the growth of H pylori in 20 h and a reliable detection method to quickly detect the amount of H pylori grown in the media. A mixture of different components was the best broth medium; ELISA was chosen as the detection technique. Performance of the new RST was compared to a gold standard (break point agar dilution method). 200 consecutive patients were tested for H pylori infection and chemosusceptibility to CH and MZ by the gold standard and RST.
Results 111 patients were infected with H pylori. 105 of these were positive by both RST and the gold standard culture method; 75/105 and 68/105 strains were susceptible to CH and MZ, respectively. RST misdiagnosed 2 strains of CH and 10 strains of MZ.
Conclusions A new simple and rapid chemosusceptibility test for H pylori has been validated, which is simple to perform and reduces the procedure time from 6–14 days to 24
Descending perineum syndrome: Are abdominal hysterectomy and bowel habits linked?
No full textPURPOSE: This retrospective study evaluates the effect of abdominal hysterectomy on patients affected by descending perineum syndrome. METHODS: Eighty-nine female patients affected by descending perineum syndrome and one group of 10 healthy women with normal bowel habits were studied retrospectively. Thirty-two descending perineum syndrome patients (Group 1) had received an abdominal hysterectomy for benign diseases, while 57 descending perineum syndrome patients (Group 2) had not undergone this surgery. All 99 subjects underwent clinical evaluation, computerized anorectal manometry, and defecography. RESULTS: Dyschezia was found predominantly in Group 2 subjects (P < 0.05). Fecal incontinence was significantly higher in Group 1 than in Group 2 (P < 0.05). The worst anal resting pressure was found in the incontinent Group 1 patients (P < 0.01). Rectoanal intussusception was a significant defecographic sign in Group 1 subjects (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Clinical evaluation and instrumental data suggested a possible link between fecal incontinence and abdominal hysterectomy in patients affected by descending perineum syndrome. © The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons
Learning Design, Co-Designing Learning Collaborative Learning Design Workshops for Innovation in Teaching/Learning
No full textThe paper explores the field of Collaborative Learning Design Workshops, a specific type of participatory workshop designed to facilitate the process of co-designing learning experiences by interdisciplinary teams of academics and educators from all backgrounds. An overview of the field of Learning Design or “Design for Learning” is presented. A specific case study is then presented, The Learning Experience Design workshop a co-design workshop designed and run by the authors as part of the F.E.D.E.R.I.C.O. faculty development program for innovation in teaching and learning targeted to newly hired lecturers and researchers at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. The workshop is aimed at promoting a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach for the innovation in teaching practices, with a special focus on blended and remote learning scenarios. In doing so the workshop introduce collaborative design and co-creation practices among academics from very different backgrounds. The workshop presented is an adaptation of a well-established model, the ABC Learning Design Workshop developed at the UCL, and has been adjusted and partially re-designed by the authors to fit the specific context of the project and the remote online collaboration scenario imposed by the Coronavirus emergency. Details on the implementation of the workshop and discussion are finally presented
Local heterogeneities in population growth and decline. A spatial analysis for Italian municipalities
No full textAssociations among taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness vary among environments
No full textDiversity metrics are commonly used to measure or quantify species-level biodiversity in a given area. In recent
decades, ecologists developed many measures and indices in order to quantify a larger proportion of information
about communities or species assemblages. Commonly these measures are based on species richness or species
evenness, in relation to their relative abundance. Among the most common diversity metrics are the indices of
taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity. These metrics are often used to assess
effectiveness of conservation planning.
One concern on the use of many diversity metrics, especially in modeling, is the potential redundancy among
these indices and measures. Many scientists explored the associations among different diversity metrics, finding
clear patterns. For instance, functional richness and the functional diversity (FD) index are both positively
correlated with species richness, while functional evenness should be unrelated to species richness. Furthermore,
explorations focusing on associations between phylogenetic diversity and taxonomic or functional diversity
metrics are few. However, despite the importance of the types of environment has on biotic assemblage rules,
there are no studies comparing the association among diversity metrics across different type of environments.
Here, we found higher values of taxonomic diversity, functional richness and Rao’s quadratic entropy (RaoQ)
in farmland than in forests and grasslands. Forest bird communities were characterized by a large amount of
evolutionary history as reflected by community evolutionary distinctiveness (CED). Furthermore, associations
among diversity and community metrics in bird communities differ across types of environments. Within
functional diversity metrics, associations between functional richness and RaoQ as well as associations between
functional evenness and divergence were always positive, independently of the type of environment. The associations
between functional richness and evenness or divergence, as well as functional evenness and RaoQ,
changed strength and direction of correlation between different types of environment.
In conclusion, a) large scale conservation planning strategies have to consider that different environments
support different dimensions of bird diversity, and b) when modeling many diversity metrics, associations
among diversity and community metrics can also change across environments
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