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Study Design Retrospective cohort study.Objectives To assess the improvement of sexual impairment after percutaneous intradiscal ozone therapy in patients complaining of low back pain (LBP) due to lumbar disc herniation.Methods Between January 2018 and June 2021, 157 consecutive imaging-guided percutaneous intradiscal ozone therapies were performed on 122 patients with LBP and/or sciatic pain due to lumbar disc herniation. Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) was administered before the treatment and at 1-month and 3-month follow-ups and the ODI Section 8 (ODI-8/sex life) values were retrospectively reviewed to evaluate the improvement of sexual impairment and disability.Results Mean age of patients was 54.63 ± 12.40. Technical success was achieved in all cases (157/157). Clinical success was registered in 61.97% (88/142) of patients at 1-month follow-up and in 82.69% (116/142) at 3-month follow-up. The mean ODI-8/sex life was 3.73 ± 1.29 before the procedure, 1.71 ± 1.37 at 1-month follow up and 0.44 ± 0.63 at 3-month follow-up. Compared to older patients, subjects under 50 years showed a significantly slower recovery of sexual impairment (p= 0.003). The treated levels were L3–L4, L4–L5, and L5–S1 in 4, 116, and 37 patients, respectively. Patients with L3–L4 disc herniation showed less sexual disability at presentation, with a significantly faster improvement of sexual life (p= 0.03).Conclusions Percutaneous intradiscal ozone therapy is highly effective in reducing sexual impairment due to lumbar disc herniation, and the improvement is faster in older patients and in the case of L3–L4 disc involvement.

The degradation of agricultural terraces is considered a major challenge to soil and water conservation in steep-slope viticulture. Although terracing is a widespread conservation practice, its sustainability is threatened by adverse climatic and man-made conditions. Previous studies have shown the impact of terrace designs on the formation of runoff pathways, causing degradation processes on terrace platforms (e.g. sheet erosion) and walls (e.g. piping, landslides, collapse). This study evaluates a remote sensing versus a field-based approach to monitor hydrological processes responsible for terrace degradation, as tested in a north-Italian vineyard. The field-based approach was based on spatially measured Soil Moisture Content (SMC) using a Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) instrument, which clearly revealed saturation hotspots around two damaged terraces in the study area. Moreover, these zones showed a particular cross-sectional SMC profile, with the highest saturation close to the terrace platform edges. The remote sensing approach was based on aerial imagery acquired by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and photogrammetric reconstruction of the vineyard geomorphology, allowing terrain-based analysis and physical erosion modelling. In this approach, simulations indicated that terrace damages could be partly explained by the formation of preferential runoff pathways caused by the terrace design. This parallel methodology allowed a comparison of the merits and limitations of either approach, as done in light of published work. The occurrence of two SMC hotspots at terrace edges (and their non-typical cross-sectional profiles) could be better understood from simulated surface flow paths. While the causal relationship between heterogeneous soil saturation and terrace instability has been previously reported in literature, the novelty of the presented study is the use of topsoil SMC as an indicator of potential damages, favouring the scalability compared to fixed, local and often intrusive terrace sub-surface experiments. Remote sensing based approaches, however, tend to offer the most time-efficient solution on larger scales, and aerial acquisition of SMC distribution could thus potentially offer a powerful integrated methodology.

Sommario Viene esaminato un particolare fenomeno vibratorio della coppia cinematica pernocuscinetto, caratieristico dei rotori rigidi e perfettamente bilanciati.