12 research outputs found
Marine taxa of Cocconeis on leaves of Posidonia oceanica, including a new species and two new varieties
No full textEight Cocconeis Ehrenberg taxa (species and varieties) epiphytic on the leaves of Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile were studied by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Samples of Posidonia oceanica were collected throughout the year from seagrass meadows around the island of Ischia (Gulf of Naples, Italy). On the basis of some peculiar ultrastructural characteristics of the valve areolation, a new species, Cocconeis multiperforata sp. nov., and two new varieties, C. neothumensis var. marina var. nov., and C. scutellum var. posidoniae var. nov., are described. Ultrastructural analysis also revealed new morphological characteristics in C. britannica Naegeli in Kutzing and C. maxima (Grunow) Peragallo and Peragallo, and confirmed observations of other authors for C. molesta var. crucifera Grunow, C. pellucida Grunow in Rabenhorst and C. stauroneiformis (Rabenhorst) Okuno. Our observations on the abundance of the different species provide new information on their distribution and ecology
Risk of malignancy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis under immunosuppressive therapy. a single-center experience
No full textSystemic inflammatory rheumatic diseases are associated with an increased risk of malignancy, in particular of lymphoproliferative disorders. Chronic inflammation, due to the disease itself, generates a microenvironment able to promote cancer development, but it is still controversial whether immunosuppressive therapy may contribute to carcinogenesis. The aim of the study was to evaluate the risk of malignancy in 399 patients affected by rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, all treated with either tumor necrosis factor α-inhibitors plus disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) or DMARDs alone. The risk of malignancy in this cohort of patients, observed in the period between 2005 and 2011 at S. Andrea Hospital-Sapienza University of Rome, was compared with that of the general Italian population, matched for age, sex, and area of residence. Fourteen (3.5 %) malignancies, five of which were hematologic, have been observed. The overall cancer risk was not significantly increased in comparison to the general population, whereas the risk of hematologic malignancies appeared significantly higher in RA patients (SIR 4.94, 95 % CI 1.35–12.64), particularly in female gender (SIR 6.9, 0.95 % CI 1.88–17.66). No significant association between therapy and malignancy was demonstrated in RA patients
Ultrastruttura di tre diatomee appartenenti al genere Cocconeis Ehr. epifite di Posidonia Oceanica (L.) Delile
No full textLe specie del genere Cocconeis Ehr. rappresentano la componente maggioritaria della comunità epifitica a diatomee presente sulle fanerogame marine.
Tale componente, che presenta una variabilità specifica piuttosto bassa, risulta costituita da un film di cellule fittamente appressate e distribuite su buona parte della superfice fogliare (Mazzella et al. 1995). Nell’ambito di uno studio sulla distribuzione e successione della comunità epifita su Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile presente nelle acque dell’isola di Ischia, abbiamo condotto delle osservazioni sull’ultrastruttura di alcune specie. Le specie studiate, C. britannica Näegeli in Kützing, C. maxima (Grunow) Peragallo et Peragallo, C. pseudomarginata Gregory , pur essendo costantemente presenti non dominano la comunità, presentano dimensioni relativamente grandi, habitus solitario e, frequentemente, sono epibionti sulle altre specie congeneri più piccole che costituiscono la gran parte del film epifita.
L’analisi ultrastrutturale, condotta con l’ausilio del microscopio elettronico a scansione e a trasmissione, ci ha mostrato una morfologia delle valve per molti dettagli contrastante con le descrizioni al microscopio ottico, le uniche finora disponibili per queste specie. Ciò è in parte dovuto alla non risolvibilità a basso ingrandimento di alcuni di questi dettagli ma anche alla sovrapposizione in luce trasmessa di elementi strutturali presenti esclusivamente o nella faccia esterna o in quella interna delle valve.
É stato possibile, inoltre, interpretare in un ottica morfo-funzionale alcuni degli elementi strutturali osservati. In particolare il sistema di aggancio delle due valve presente in due delle tre diatomee osservate, che risulta mediato dal preciso incastro di elementi diversi ma visibilmente complementari presenti sulle due valvocopulae.
L. Mazzella, M.C. Buia and L. Spinoccia 1995: Biodiversity of epiphytic diatom community on leaves of Posidonia oceanica. - In: D. Marino & M. Montresor (Eds.) Proceedings of the 13th International Diatom Symposium. Biopress; Bristol. 241-25
Probable dengue virus infection among Italian troops, East Timor, 1999-2000
No full textTo investigate the attack rate and risk factors for probable dengue fever, a cross-sectional study was conducted of an Italian military unit after its deployment to East Timor. Probable dengue was contracted by 16 (6.6%) of 241 army troops and caused half of all medical evacuations (12/24); no cases were detected among navy and air force personnel
The Venetian treatises: a frame
No full textIt is traditionally taught by Accounting historians (Melis, 1950, 19-20) that the rise of the modern accounting history coincides with the first printed work we know, that is the Summa by Luca Pacioli.
Yet the double entry had already been invented and had been in use for over a century in the small business houses of Italian merchants. Its conception tided up with the trade flourish thanks to the development until the end of XV Century of the Independent Communes, of Signorias, Princedoms and of the Maritime Republics and to the connected need to control and report the acts of management of the companies which had grown both in dimension and business scope (Peragallo, 1938, 1-37; De Roover, 1955, 405-420).
It’s hard to know who the first author to write a work about the double entry-bookkeeping was, since until the last decades of the XV Century Gutenberg printing didn’t exist (invented in 1455 and slightly introduced in Italy starting from 1463).
Consequently whoever wrote about the subject before that time couldn’t issue his work, which remained as a manuscript with the exception of Benedetto Cotrugli’s one (cf. § 3.1) which was rediscovered and printed one hundred and fifteen years after its writing.
Otherwise, it is known that already before the publishing of the Summa by Pacioli in several towns of the Italian Peninsula there were master charts of accounts bookkeeping, masters who taught the double-entry (Bariola, 1897, 59-63; Besta, 1916, 345-346; Melis, 1950, 59).
Thus it is probable that those very preceptors, at least some of them, had arranged somewhat structured notes to carry out their work. A well known example is Master Troilo, quoted in a couple of 1457 ledger and journal belonged to Nicolò and Alvise Barbarigo’s brothers. In them the “quattro soldi lira di grossi” (four coins of heavy Lira) expense is entered to pay “maistro” (master) Troilo as a compensation of bookkeeping teaching in the previous six months (Alfieri, 1891, 108-109; Besta, 1916, 345-346; 376-377).
As he did, in that period many others used to teach the double entry method to merchants and, generally, they were the same teachers of abacus and calligraphy, which were never carried out separately according to the custom of that time.
Actually, by chance, even some of the first printed books – which were issued in little quantity due to the high cost of printing above all in the early years – could have been definitely lost. Vittorio Alfieri reminds us (Alfieri, 1891, 109) that in a journal dating 1484 entitled “Zornale R” owned to Francesco Minuzani, a Paduan librarian who worked in Venice, there is a list of books of his small business house where works of bookkeeping and abacus are referenced, some of which have not been catalogued in any library.
It is possible that these works contained references to double entry, due to the strict relation of the above mentioned subjects.
According to the updating knowledge, the first author in the timeline having illustrated the double entry method was Benedetto Cotrugli in a manuscript dating 1458. There is a wider edition too, which has been found only in the Nineties and is known as the “ Malta’s Manuscript” (Sangster, 2014). This is also the only celebrated manuscript enshrining double entry notions which has been arranged before the Summa by Luca Pacioli.
It is worth noting that the first Italian double entry treatises were all issued in Venice – from Pacioli up to the early years of the XVII Century, thus for over a century – except for a chapter of the 1539 book by Gerolamo Cardano (Cardano, 1539) and the 1586 edition by Angelo Pietra (Pietra, 1586). This witnesses the pivotal and privileged role for the cultural hegemony played by Venice for such a long period of time. Starting from the XVII century the publication of accounting works has spread all over the territory.
The principal aim of this work is to frame the Venetian treatises compared with the double entry works in the whole Italian Peninsula. Following, the contents of the most relevant writings will be briefly commented in order to find out a “conceptual frame” of the contributions provided by several authors to the growth of accounting. Some of these books will be gathered and widely commented in the deepening of the present volume
Emerg Infect Dis
No full textTo investigate the attack rate and risk factors for probable dengue fever, a cross-sectional study was conducted of an Italian military unit after its deployment to East Timor. Probable dengue was contracted by 16 (6.6%) of 241 army troops and caused half of all medical evacuations (12/24); no cases were detected among navy and air force personnel
Mastogloia binotata Cleve 1895
No full text<i>Mastogloia binotata</i> (Grunow) Cleve 1895 (Figs 1–8) <p> <b>Basionym:</b> — <i>Cocconeis binotata</i> Grunow 1863, p. 145, pl. 4 (13), fig. 13a.</p> <p> <b>Synonym:—</b> <i>Cocconeis binotata</i> var. <i>stauroneiformis</i> Grunow 1863, p. 145, pl. 4 (13), fig. 13b. <i>Orthoneis</i> <i>binotata</i> (Grunow) Grunow 1867, p. 15.</p> <p> <b>References:—</b> Van Heurck 1880 –1885, pl. 28, fig. 7, as <i>Orthoneis binotata</i>; Van Heurck 1896, p. 284, pl. 29, fig. 815, as <i>Orthoneis binotata</i>; Peragallo & Peragallo 1897 –1908, p. 27, pl. 5, fig. 2, as <i>Orthoneis binotata</i>; Hustedt 1933, p. 470, fig. 889; Hendey 1964, p. 238, pl. 37, fig. 11; Cholnoky 1968, p. 41, fig. 38; Ricard 1973, p. 163, pl. 1, fig. 7; 1975, p. 51, pl. 2, figs 9–11; Stephens & Gibson 1979a, p. 500, figs 2–9; 1979b, fig. 4; Navarro 1983, p. 120, figs 18, 19; Kociolek <i>et al.</i> 1987, figs 1–23; Paddock & Kemp 1990, figs 112, 132; Hein <i>et al</i>. 1993, figs 12, 13; 2008, p. 60, pl. 34, fig. 7; John 1994, p. 192, fig. 18; Witkowski <i>et al</i>. 2000, p. 240, pl. 75, figs 15–18.</p> <p> <b>Material:—</b> Sample from Calabria, Italy. SEM stub no. DISVAR-ANC59SP43.</p> <p> <b>SEM morphology:—</b> Externally, the raphe-sternum is slightly transapically dilated at centre into a very thin lanceolate fascia that does not reach the valve margins (Figs 1, 2, 7). The raphe consists externally of two straight branches ending centrally and distally in apically expanded pores (Figs 1–3, 7). Internally, the straight raphe branches are bordered by ribs, which are slightly raised only at the central nodule and the helictoglossae at the poles (Figs 4, 5). The transapical striae (14–18 in 10 µm) are uniseriate and vary from parallel at centre to curved and radiate at poles, and they are crossed by a more or less quincunx pattern which is more evident near the apex (Figs 1, 7). The areolae forming the striae are both externally and internally circular, sunken onto the valve surface and occluded by vela with rotae, decreasing in size at the valve–mantle junction (Figs 1–5, 7, 8). There is only one large, rectangular and central partectum (1.9–2.8 µm in width) (Fig. 4, arrowhead) attached to each side of the valvocopula with a flange consisting in a series of very short costae and biseriate striae (Figs 4, 6, arrowhead). The partecta are ornamented on its surface with uni- to triseriate rows of small pores. Each partectum opens externally in the middle of the valvocopula through a large and elongate partectal pore (Fig. 7, arrowhead), while beyond one row of small pores is present. Length: 19.6– 27.3 µm; width: 11.4–16.4 µm (Table 1).</p>Published as part of <i>Pennesi, Chiara, Poulin, Michel, Hinz, Friedel, Romagnoli, Tiziana, Stefano, Mario De & Totti, Cecilia, 2013, Comparison of two new species of Mastogloia (Bacillariophyceae) with other small members of section Ellipticae, pp. 1-21 in Phytotaxa 126 (1)</i> on page 3, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.126.1.1, <a href="http://zenodo.org/record/5085212">http://zenodo.org/record/5085212</a>
Have Diagnostics, Therapies, and Vaccines Made the Difference in the Pandemic Evolution of COVID-19 in Comparison with “Spanish Flu”?
No full textIn 1918 many countries, but not Spain, were fighting World War I. Spanish press could report about the diffusion and severity of a new infection without censorship for the first-time, so that this pandemic is commonly defined as “Spanish flu”, even though Spain was not its place of origin. “Spanish flu” was one of the deadliest pandemics in history and has been frequently compared with the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic. These pandemics share similarities, being both caused by highly variable and transmissible respiratory RNA viruses, and diversity, represented by diagnostics, therapies, and especially vaccines, which were made rapidly available for COVID-19, but not for “Spanish flu”. Most comparison studies have been carried out in the first period of COVID-19, when these resources were either not yet available or their use had not long started. Conversely, we wanted to analyze the role that the advanced diagnostics, anti-viral agents, including monoclonal antibodies, and innovative COVID-19 vaccines, may have had in the pandemic containment. Early diagnosis, therapies, and anti-COVID-19 vaccines have markedly reduced the pandemic severity and mortality, thus preventing the collapse of the public health services. However, their influence on the reduction of infections and re-infections, thus on the transition from pandemic to endemic condition, appears to be of minor relevance. The high viral variability of influenza and coronavirus may probably be contained by the development of universal vaccines, which are not easy to be obtained. The only effective weapon still remains the disease prevention, to be achieved with the reduction of promiscuity between the animal reservoirs of these zoonotic diseases and humans
Evaluation of cancer surveillance completeness among the Italian army personnel, by capture–recapture methodology
No full textA Historical Review of Military Medical Strategies for Fighting Infectious Diseases: From Battlefields to Global Health
No full textThe environmental conditions generated by war and characterized by poverty, undernutrition, stress, difficult access to safe water and food as well as lack of environmental and personal hygiene favor the spread of many infectious diseases. Epidemic typhus, plague, malaria, cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis, tetanus, and smallpox have nearly constantly accompanied wars, frequently deeply conditioning the outcome of battles/wars more than weapons and military strategy. At the end of the nineteenth century, with the birth of bacteriology, military medical researchers in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France were active in discovering the etiological agents of some diseases and in developing preventive vaccines. Emil von Behring, Ronald Ross and Charles Laveran, who were or served as military physicians, won the first, the second, and the seventh Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering passive anti-diphtheria/tetanus immunotherapy and for identifying mosquito Anopheline as a malaria vector and plasmodium as its etiological agent, respectively. Meanwhile, Major Walter Reed in the United States of America discovered the mosquito vector of yellow fever, thus paving the way for its prevention by vector control. In this work, the military relevance of some vaccine-preventable and non-vaccine-preventable infectious diseases, as well as of biological weapons, and the military contributions to their control will be described. Currently, the civil–military medical collaboration is getting closer and becoming interdependent, from research and development for the prevention of infectious diseases to disasters and emergencies management, as recently demonstrated in Ebola and Zika outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic, even with the high biocontainment aeromedical evacuation, in a sort of global health diplomacy
