102,015 research outputs found

    Stillbirths at Term : Case Control Study of Risk Factors, Growth Status and Placental Histology

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    Objective: To investigate the proportion of stillbirths at term associated with abnormal growth using customized birth weight percentiles and to compare histological placental findings both in underweight stillborn fetuses and in live births. Methods: A retrospective case-control study of 150 singleton term stillbirths. The livebirth control groups included 586 cases of low-risk pregnancies and 153 late fetal growth restriction fetuses. Stillbirths and livebirths from low-risk pregnancies were classified using customized standards for fetal weight at birth, as adequate for gestational age (AGA; 10-90th percentile), small (SGA; 90th percentile). Placental characteristics in stillbirth were compared with those from livebirths using four categories: inflammation, disruptive, obstructive and adaptive lesions. Results: There was a higher rate of SGA (26% vs 6%, p<0.001) and LGA fetuses (10.6% vs 5.6%, p<0.05) in the stillbirth group. Among stillbirth fetuses, almost half of the SGA were very low birthweight (≤3°percentile) (12% vs 0.3%, p<0.001). The disruptive (7.3% vs 0.17%; p<0.001), obstructive (54.6% vs 7.5%;p<0.001) and adaptive (46.6% vs 35.8%;p<0.001) findings were significantly more common in than in livebirth-low risk. Placental characteristics of AGA and SGA stillbirth were compared with those of AGA and FGR livebirth. In stillbirths-SGA we found a higher number of disruptive (12.8% vs 0%; p<0.001), obstructive (58.9% vs 23.5%;p<0.001) and adaptive lesions (56.4% vs 49%; p 0.47) than in livebirth-FGR. Conclusion: The assessment of fetal weight with customized curves can identify fetuses which have not reached their genetically determined growth potential and are therefore at risk for adverse outcomes. Placental evaluation in stillbirths can reveal chronic histological signs that might be useful to clinical assessment, especially in underweight fetuses. © 2016 Mecacci et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

    The First Commentary on L. S. Vygotsky’s Papers at the II All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurology in Petrograd (January 1924)

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    At the Second All-Russian Congress on Psychoneurology in Petrograd (January 1924), Vygotsky delivered three papers. The first paper (&ldquo;Methodology of Reflexological and Psychological Research&rdquo;), was printed separately, but the text of the other two reports (&ldquo;How Psychology Should Be Taught Now&rdquo; and &ldquo;Results of a Questionnaire on the Moods of Students of the Graduating Classes of the Gomel Schools in 1923&rdquo;) has not survived. A brief account of these two reports, which appeared in the magazine Krasnaya Nov&rsquo; in 1924, is reprinted here for the first time. The author was the revolutionary M.I. Ginzburg (1877-1940), a researcher at the Moscow Psychological Institute in the mid-1920s. He wrote under the pseudonym G. Dayan. Ginzburg-Dayan was severely criticised in 1935 on charges of Trotskyism.</p

    Presentazione

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    Today the experience of beauty may be enjoyed by means of products that are not only artistic but also commercial and aesthetics is facing new horizons which include the experiences of everyday life. However, because of their prosaic character everyday objects have only rarely been at the centre of philosophical reflection. The aim of this issue of “Aisthesis” is to reflect with fruitful variety of approach on the epistemological status of the product, its value and significance in the light of the dialectics functionality/beauty, its relationship with the art work, and the new and specific conceptual paradigms that may offer an interpretive key

    Paradoxical response to an emotional task: Trait characteristics and heart-rate dynamics

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    Item does not contain fulltextThe present study evaluated the heart-rate dynamics of subjects reporting decreased (responders) or paradoxically increased relaxation (nonresponders) at the end of a threatening movie. Heart-rate dynamics were characterized by indices extracted through recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). These indices were studied as a function of a few individual characteristics: hypnotizability, gender, absorption, anxiety, and the activity of the behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS). Results showed that (a) the subjective experience of responsiveness is associated with the activity of the behavioral inhibition system and (b) a few RQA and DFA indices are able to capture the influence of cognitive-emotional traits, including hypnotizability, on the responsiveness to the threatening task.16 p

    Difference in cardiac remodeling between female athletes and pregnant women: a case control study

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    Objectives: The aim of this study was to detect possible differences in reversible cardiac remodeling occurring in sport training and twin pregnancy. Background: cardiac remodeling occurs in athletes and pregnant women due to training and fetal requirements, respectively. These changes could be apparently similar. Methods: 21 female elite athletes (23.2 ± 5.3 years), 25 women with twin pregnancies (35.4 ± 5.7 years) and 25 healthy competitive female athletes (controls), age-matched with pregnant women (34.9 ± 7.9 years), were enrolled. This latter group was included to minimize the effect of age on cardiac remodeling. All women evaluated through anamnestic collection, physical examination, 12 leads ECG, standard echocardiogram and strain analysis. Sphericity (SI) and apical conicity (ACI) indexes were also calculated. Results: Pregnant women showed higher LA dimension (p < 0.001) compared to both groups of athletes. LV e RV GLS were significantly different in pregnant women compared to female athletes (p = 0.02 and 0.03, respectively). RV GLS was also different between pregnant women and controls (p = 0.02). Pregnant women showed significantly higher S′ wave compared to female athletes (p = 0.02) but not controls. Parameters of diastolic function were significantly higher in athletes (p = 0.08 for IVRT and p < 0.001 for E/A,). SI was lower in athletes in both diastole (p = 0.01) and systole (p < 0.001), while ACIs was lower in pregnant women (p = 0.04). Conclusions: Cardiac remodeling of athletes and pregnant women could be similar at first sight but different in LV shape and in GLS, highlighting a profound difference in longitudinal deformation between athletes and pregnant women. This difference seems not to be related with age. These findings suggest that an initial maternal cardiovascular maladaptation could occur in the third trimester of twin pregnancies
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