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We report in this paper the muography of an archaeological site located in the highly populated “Sanità” district in the center of Naples, ten meters below the current street level. Several detectors capable of detecting muons - high energy charged particles produced by cosmic rays in the upper layers of atmosphere - were installed underground at the depth of 18 m, to measure the muon flux over several weeks. By measuring the differential flux with our detectors in a wide angular range, we have produced a radiographic image of the upper layers. Despite the architectural complexity of the site, we have clearly observed the known structures as well as a few unknown ones. One of the observed new structures is compatible with the existence of a hidden, currently inaccessible, burial chamber.

Background: Delirium is a serious and common condition that needs an upgrade of the scientific and clinical attention. Aim: To assess the delirium prevalence in an Italian university hospital. Methods: The monocentric 1-day observational study cohort has been conducted on March 15, 2018; the population was composed of adult hospitalized patients. All the eligible patients have been evaluated for the presence of delirium with the 4AT. Results: We enrolled 596 patients. Twenty-nine Acute and 3 Rehabilitation Units were involved in the study. The median age of the sample was 60 (IQR 48–74) and 52% (n = 313) were male. Patients from medical units were 42% (n = 252), from surgery units 41% (n = 249), and from rehabilitation units 15% (n = 95). Results of 4AT showed that 5.4% (n = 32) had delirium (4AT = 4), 12% (n = 73) had cognitive impairment (4AT = 1–3), and 82% (n = 491) had no delirium or cognitive impairment (4AT = 0). We found association between delirium and age, BMI, mortality at 30days, and hospital mortality. Delirium was related with Barthel Index, dementia, and anticholinesterase inhibitors. About devices in use, we observed a correlation of delirium with central venous catheter, feeding tube, and urinary catheter. Physical restraints were also correlated to delirium. Conclusions: We confirmed the presence of delirium across the hospital units, more in medical than in surgical ones. We found associations of delirium with conditions that limit movement, such as dementia, physical restraints, or devices. The development of delirium initiates a cascade of events culminating in the loss of independence and increased morbidity.

Background Quantification of individual species in microbial co-cultures and consortia is critical to understanding and designing communities with prescribed functions. However, it is difficult to physically separate species or measure species-specific attributes in most multi-species systems. Anaerobic gut fungi (AGF) (Neocallimastigomycetes) are native to the rumen of large herbivores, where they exist as minority members among a wealth of prokaryotes. AGF have significant biotechnological potential owing to their diverse repertoire of potent lignocellulose-degrading carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), which indirectly bolsters activity of other rumen microbes through metabolic exchange. While decades of literature suggest that polysaccharide degradation and AGF growth are accelerated in co-culture with prokaryotes, particularly methanogens, methods have not been available to measure concentrations of individual species in co-culture. New methods to disentangle the contributions of AGF and rumen prokaryotes are sorely needed to calculate AGF growth rates and metabolic fluxes to prove this hypothesis and understand its causality for predictable co-culture design. Results We present a simple, microplate-based method to measure AGF and methanogen concentrations in co-culture based on fluorescence and absorbance spectroscopies. Using samples of < 2% of the co-culture volume, we demonstrate significant increases in AGF growth rate and xylan and glucose degradation rates in co-culture with methanogens relative to mono-culture. Further, we calculate significant differences in AGF metabolic fluxes in co-culture relative to mono-culture, namely increased flux through the energy-generating hydrogenosome organelle. While calculated fluxes highlight uncertainties in AGF primary metabolism that preclude definitive explanations for this shift, our method will enable steady-state fluxomic experiments to probe AGF metabolism in greater detail. Conclusions The method we present to measure AGF and methanogen concentrations enables direct growth measurements and calculation of metabolic fluxes in co-culture. These metrics are critical to develop a quantitative understanding of interwoven rumen metabolism, as well as the impact of co-culture on polysaccharide degradation and metabolite production. The framework presented here can inspire new methods to probe systems beyond AGF and methanogens. Simple modifications to the method will likely extend its utility to co-cultures with more than two organisms or those grown on solid substrates to facilitate the design and deployment of microbial communities for bioproduction and beyond.

In this paper we describe some results on the linear integer programming formulation of the Probabilistic Minimum Power Multicast (PMPM) problem for wireless networks. The PMPM problem consists in optimally assigning transmission powers to the nodes of a given network in order to establish a multihop connection between a source node and a set of destination nodes. The nodes are subject to failure with some probability, however the assignment should be made so that the reliability of the connection is above a given threshold level. This model reflects the necessity of taking into account the uncertainty of hosts' availability in a telecommunication network.

Silicon-nitride films were deposited on silicon waters by XeCl (308 nm) excimer-laser ablation of silicon in low-pressure (0.05–5 mbar) ammonia atmospheres. Series of 10 000 pulses at the repetition rate of 8 Hz were directed to the target surface. The fluence was set at about 5 J/cm2. Pulse duration was about 30 ns. The deposited films were characterized by different techniques (X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy, profilometry). Silicon-nitride films with thickness close to 1 μm were obtained under specific experimental conditions.

A hexagonal-BN target was ablated by high-fluence (6 and 12 J/cm2) KrF excimer laser pulses in low-pressure (5 Pa) N2 atmosphere, without any aid of ion bombardment and heating of the Si substrate. Investigations of the deposited films show that the cubic-BN phase was deposited. The film deposited at 6 J/cm2 appears to contain a higher cubic phase content with respect to the one deposited at 12 J/cm2.

Environmental heterogeneity in natural ecosystems influences several parameters at the population and community levels. In freshwater ecosystems, habitat heterogeneity can be provided by macrophyte species with different structural shapes. Previous studies suggest that aquatic plants with more complex architectures will support higher number, biomass, and taxon richness of macroinvertebrates than plants with simpler shape. We investigated the influence of macrophyte structural heterogeneity (quantified by fractal dimension) and food availability (represented by epiphytic biomass) on several parameters (number of individuals, biomass, body size distribution, taxon richness, and diversity) of the macroinvertebrate community in a Pampean stream. Four submerged macrophyte species (Egeria densa, Elodea ernstae, Ceratophyllum demersum, and Stuckenia striata) and associated macroinvertebrates were sampled in late spring, summer, and autumn. Plants were photographed and fractal dimension was estimated from the images by the box-counting method. Fractal dimension was independent of plant surface area per unit of macrophyte biomass and differed significantly among species. Mean fractal dimension varied between 1.29 and 1.62, and increased following the sequence E. densa → S. striata → E. ernstae → C. demersum. Macrophyte species with higher fractal dimension supported a greater abundance of macroinvertebrates, especially those of small body size (500–1,000 μm); but fractal dimension was unrelated to macroinvertebrate biomass, richness, and diversity. However, overall animal biomass was significantly associated to the epiphytic abundance. Consequently, macrophyte heterogeneity influences macroinvertebrate density and body size distribution, while animal biomass depends on epiphytic food resources provided by plants.

The present paper describes the quality-control component of an automatic procedure (APACH: A Procedure for Automated Quality Control and Homogenization of Weather Station Data) developed to control quality and homogenize the historical daily temperature and precipitation data from meteorological stations. The quality-control method is based on a set of decision-tree algorithms analyzing separately precipitation and minimum and maximum temperature. All our tests are non-parametric and therefore are potentially useful in regions or countries presenting different climates as those observed in Argentina. The method is applied to the 1959-2005 historical daily database of the Argentine National Weather Service. Our results are coherent with the history of the Weather Service and more specifically with the history of implementation of systematized quality control processes. In temperature, our method detects a larger number of suspect values before 1967 (when there was no quality control) and after 1997 (when only real-time quality control had been applied). In precipitation, the detection of error in extreme precipitations is complex, but our method clearly detected a strong decrease in the number of potential outliers after 1976 when the National Weather Service was militarized, and the network was strongly reduced, focusing more on airport weather stations. Also in precipitation, we analyze in detail the long dry sequences and are able to identify potential long erroneous sequences. This is important for the use of the data for hydrological or agricultural impact studies. Finally, all the data are flagged with codes representing the path followed by the record in our decision-tree algorithms. While each code is associated to one of the categories (“Useful”, “Need-Check”, “Doubtful” or “Suspect”), the final user is free to redefine such category-assignment.

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis supervised by Paolo Nobili and defended on 20 April 2007 at the Universita del Salento (Lecce). The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. This work deals with multicast problems in wireless Ad-Hoc networks and some related variants.

Primary care and mental health were recently integrated by the Italian health authorities. The Bologna Primary Care Liaison Service (PCLS) is ideally suited to the Italian National Health Care System, because most primary care physicians practice individually and mental health services provide first level care. The distinctive features of the program are: 1) location within a mental health center; 2) comprehensive mental health assessment and intervention; 3) collaboration between primary care physicians and mental health services which is facilitated through committees and communication. First year results met expectations. Integrating a PCLS program within a mental health center can be a viable means of implementing national policy.

Titanium carbide films were deposited on silicon wafers by laser reactive ablation. A pure titanium target placed inside a methane (CH4) atmosphere was irradiated by a XeCl excimer laser with a fluence of 5 J/cm2 and a repetition rate of 8 Hz. Experiments were performed at different values of the ambient pressure in order to investigate the influence of the deposition parameters on the film properties. Results show that at low pressure values (p< 10-5 mbar) the deposited layers are mainly constituted of metallic titanium whereas for pressure ranging from 10-5 to 10-1 mbar they are formed of titanium carbide (TiC) with small amount of oxides. The stoichiometry and thickness of the titanium carbide films can be controlled by the partial pressure of the atmosphere and the number of laser pulses, respectively.

In the present work a novel approach to suicide and nitride formation on the surface of silicon single crystals wafers is reported. The compound growth occurs directly in the place of interest as a result of a laser promoted chemical reaction. Results indicate that it is possible to obtain a titanium nitride layer superimposed on a titanium suicide film with a single-step laser irradiation process. The thickness of the suicide and nitride layers can be adjusted by a proper choice of the laser fluence and number of subsequent pulses.

Samples formed of a thin metal film deposited on silicon single crystal were annealed with electron and laser (ruby and excimer) pulses over a wide range of fluences. From a comparison of the experimental results with the temperature profiles of the irradiated samples, it turns out that suicide formation starts when the metal/silicon interface reaches the lowest eutectic temperature of the binary metal/silicon system. The growth rate of reacted layers is of the order of 1 m/s.

Titanium films 120 nm thick deposited on single-crystalline silicon (c-Si) as well as poly-Si/SiO2/c-Si substrates were subjected to Nd: glass laser irradiation. Laser fluences of 1,1.5, and 2 J/cm2 were used at the pulse duration of 30 ns. From RBS analysis it follows that on c-Si substrate titanium suicide is formed using one pulse of 1.5 J/cm2 energy density. On the substrate with surface overlayers lower fluence (1 J/cm2) was sufficient. Under these conditions the sheet resistance of the samples decreased from the initial value 5 Ω/□ to 2–3 Ω/□. The smaller threshold density of energy for suicide formation in Ti/polySi/SiO2/c-Si structure is shown to be a consequence of the SiO2 underlayer, which is a poorer heat conductor than silicon. The experimental results of the suicide synthesis are in semi-quantitative accordance with the numerical computations of the temperature vs time evolution and depth temperature distribution in our samples.

The specific IgE response that appears in subjects immunized with tetanus toxoid does not induce hypersensitivity reactions at subsequent immunizations. The type I immune response, therefore, was studied both in vivo and in vitro, in 11 subjects who had specific IgE antibodies for tetanus toxoid. The results showed that: 1. the specific IgE antibodies are heterogeneous regarding their affinity for the mast cell and basophil receptors; 2. the specific IgG antibodies for tetanus toxoid, at serum concentrations, are not able to interfere with the in vitro specific basophil degranulation; 3. in the PEG precipitate there are aggregates of specific IgE antibodies for tetanus toxoid. In vitro, these molecular aggregates are not able to sensitize the basophil cells.

The adaptive response of the Adh locus to different temperatures was determined in an experimental population with a stabilized gene pool in order to confirm the conclusions reached in a previous paper (Pieragostini et al., Genetica 56: 27–37, 1981) using as experimental material a laboratory population in which heterosis and strong interaction between loci were present.