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Introduzione. L'Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità (OMS) definisce la Comorbilità o Doppia Diagnosi come la coesistenza nel medesimo individuo di un disturbo dovuto al consumo di sostanze psicoattive ed un altro disturbo psichiatrico (OMS, 1995). Per quanto piuttosto criticata tale definizione consente di individuare una popolazione di pazienti le cui caratteristiche psicopatologiche appaiono peculiari e molto spesso di difficile ed non univoca interpretazione diagnostica; da tali difficoltà discendono frequentemente diatribe ideologico culturali e reali difficoltà di intervento terapeutico che mantengono queste persone in una condizione di equilibrio precario con elevati costi in termini sanitari e di mancata produttività lavorativa. In letteratura sono presenti numerosi lavori che cercano di coniugare ipotesi etiopatogenetiche di area psichiatrica con vie neurotrasmettitoriali più tipicamente associate al mondo delle dipendenze patologiche, delineando una specifica cultura psicopatologica che cerchi di dare risposte a quesiti diagnostici di difficile soluzione. Tra i vari modelli che cercano di chiarire le associazioni etiopatogenetiche comuni a dipendenze ed altri disturbi mentali quello che forse appare più completo è l'ipotesi della "disregolazione omeostatica edonica" (la disedonia), correlato fenomenologico delle dipendenze e della malattia mentale che allo stesso momento spiegherebbe la maggiore frequenza di dipendenza nei soggetti con spettro bipolare (inteso anche come tratto temperamentale) come anche del discontrollo degli impulsi o dell'incapacità a prevedere le conseguenze dei propri agiti. In questo solco si inserisce il nostro studio con l'intento di fornire un contributo alla creazione di un linguaggio neurocomportamentale specifico per il mondo delle dipendenze. Scopo e Metodi End point primario del nostro studio è quello di identificare attraverso la frequenza nel SCL-90R, di specifiche dimensioni sintomatologiche attribuibili a specifiche popolazioni di pazienti. In seconda istanza abbiamo indagato l'eventuale esistenza di caratteristiche psicopatologiche comuni tra pazienti con patologia di spettro bipolare e dipendenza; in ultimo abbiamo valutato l'impatto della doppia diagnosi sul funzionamento globale dell'individuo. Abbiamo arruolato tre coorti di pazienti: soggetti eroinomani senza altra psicopatologia, eroinomani con disturbo bipolare, soggetti affetti da disturbo bipolare senza dipendenza, tutti provenienti dai Ser.D e DSM della provincia di (…...) La diagnosi è stata formulata attraverso il criterio dell'osservazione clinica, supportata da strumenti psicodiagnostici (MMPI-1, SCID 2) ed esami laboratoristici (esami tossicologici urinari). Le dimensioni sintomatologiche prevalenti sono state indagate con la SCL 90R. Risultati Non sono emersi dati significativi relativi ad una specifica dimensione psicopatologica per i soggetti affetti da Disturbo da uso di sostanze. Tra le sottoscale del SCL-90, l'ANX è la dimensione comune rilevata tra eroinomani bipolari (doppia diagnosi) e bipolari. Nel confronto tra i tre gruppi (eroinomani senza comorbilità, eroinomani bipolari, bipolari) valutati globalmente, il gruppo meno disfunzionale è risultato quello degli eroinomani. La ridotta estensione dei campioni esaminati non ci permette di pervenire a risultati definitivi richiedendo ulteriori studi in tal senso.

The environmental concern has become central for many bus companies, but estimating pollutant emissions can be difficult for many reasons (little knowledge or underestimation of the problem; scarce know-how; reluctance to acknowledge the pollutant potential of bus fleets because either of small size or composed by too many old-generation vehicles). To facilitate this task, an integrated, user-friendly model, iGREEN, is presented. The paper describes the methodology for the development of this tool, which is specifically designed to help transit operators in assessing the pollutants emitted by fleets where the amount of old buses is not negligible. This is not a minor issue, given the large number of obsolete vehicles still circulating and the unsuitability of some models when calculating emissions in case of buses with protracted mileage. Results from two case studies are reported and commented, with the final aim to advance knowledge farther afield. This gives rise to a discussion on the relevance of such environmental concerns also in light of the contemporary pandemic which seem to have generated different priorities in the public transport management.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major global health threat and its development is promoted by antibiotic misuse. While disk diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST, also called antibiogram) is broadly used to test for antibiotic resistance in bacterial infections, it faces strong criticism because of inter-operator variability and the complexity of interpretative reading. Automatic reading systems address these issues, but are not always adapted or available to resource-limited settings. We present the first artificial intelligence (AI)-based, offline smartphone application for antibiogram analysis. The application captures images with the phone’s camera, and the user is guided throughout the analysis on the same device by a user-friendly graphical interface. An embedded expert system validates the coherence of the antibiogram data and provides interpreted results. The fully automatic measurement procedure of our application’s reading system achieves an overall agreement of 90% on susceptibility categorization against a hospital-standard automatic system and 98% against manual measurement (gold standard), with reduced inter-operator variability. The application’s performance showed that the automatic reading of antibiotic resistance testing is entirely feasible on a smartphone. Moreover our application is suited for resource-limited settings, and therefore has the potential to significantly increase patients’ access to AST worldwide.

Environmental issues are an imperative concern for bus companies. But, when it comes to estimating pollutant emissions, problems arise, typically: the underestimation of the local fleet potential in producing pollution (especially in case of small fleets); and the reluctance to estimate that when the fleet is composed by a not negligible amount of old-generation vehicles. To this end, an integrated emission-estimation model for bus fleets is developed and described in the paper, with the research goal to facilitate the emissions calculation task for transit operators. The procedure is embedded in a successfully-implemented software for the management and maintenance of bus fleets. The model moves from well-known assessment methods (namely COPERT and IVE) but addresses issues like long-protracted mileage and age of vehicles which make it especially useful when “old” fleets' emissions are to be assessed. A case study, in a middle-size city in Italy, is also described to highlight the model development and results.

When it comes to simulate traffic emissions, problems arise: which is the best model to use, which data are needed and whether they are all available, whether the process is time-consuming and/or calls for expert, etc. It is not surprising, then, that public transport operators might be hesitant in estimating the emission package of the bus fleets they manage. Moreover, the underestimation of the local fleet potential in producing pollution (in case of small fleets) on the one hand, and the reluctance to estimate it when the fleet is composed by a good amount of old-generation vehicles on the other, are further elements of uncertainty. However, transit operators’ obligation to manage and maintain clean bus fleets is becoming more and more imperative and in Italy recent regulations subsidize transit companies to purchase buses with cleaner performance. The assessment of how much pollutant is the fleet to renovate becomes, then, crucial. To this end, an emission-estimation model for bus fleets is developed and described in the paper, with the research goal to facilitate the emissions calculation among transit operators. The procedure is embedded in an already successfully-implemented software for the management and maintenance of bus fleets. The model moves from well-known assessment methods (namely COPERT and IVE) but addresses issues like long-protracted mileage and age of vehicles which make it especially useful when “old” fleets emissions are to be assessed. A case study, in a middle-size city in Italy, is also described to highlight the model development.

The paper describes the feasibility study for the rehabilitation of a railway corridor at Lanciano, in central Italy. Although the area is not densely populated, the need to divert commuters’ flows from passenger cars to transit is sufficient to prompt the analysis, and the choice to focus on rail rather than rubber-tired modes is dictated by the willingness to operate more environmentally-friendly services. Area features and demand patterns, all described in the paper, steer the selection to light railway, and more specifically to tram-train services. Goals, requirements and the study outcomes are duly reported. The research question behind, and the goal of the paper, is to identify drivers and barriers to resume a commercial service on an abandoned alignment, with the goal to provide evidence for feasibility studies for similar cases.

Revamping abandoned railways is often associated with leisure functions and non-routine trips. When areas evolve from rural settlements to conurbations with mixed land use and high travel demand, the reuse of no-longer-operational rail services can prove to be appropriate to meet such new requirements. This is the case of an abandoned railway in central Italy, the Sangritana Line, whose rehabilitation could serve a former rural area, now under continuous development. The paper outlines operational features of the new service, starting from the available Sangritana infrastructure, in order to highlight the drivers and barriers associated with the reopening of operations. The goal is to provide scientific corroboration for similar feasibility studies and stress the relevance of rehabilitating railways in urban regeneration processes according to a vision called the Multiple Rs, which associates the new rail supply with the possibility of requalifying several components of the urban environment. To this end, along with the initial description of the status quo and the local constraints, the paper elaborates the methodology adopted for this feasibility study, the main operational findings, with a focus on the potential environmental benefits, and the implications according to the Multiple Rs approach.

Nonlinear structured illumination microscopy (nSIM) is an effective approach for super-resolution wide-field fluorescence microscopy with a theoretically unlimited resolution. In nSIM, carefully designed, highly-contrasted illumination patterns are combined with the saturation of an optical transition to enable sub-diffraction imaging. While the technique proved useful for two-dimensional imaging, extending it to three-dimensions is challenging due to the fading of organic fluorophores under intense cycling conditions. Here, we present a compressed sensing approach that allows 3D sub-diffraction nSIM of cultured cells by saturating fluorescence excitation. Exploiting the natural orthogonality of speckles at different axial planes, 3D probing of the sample is achieved by a single two-dimensional scan. Fluorescence contrast under saturated excitation is ensured by the inherent high density of intensity minima associated with optical vortices in polarized speckle patterns. Compressed speckle microscopy is thus a simple approach that enables 3D super-resolved nSIM imaging with potentially considerably reduced acquisition time and photobleaching., Nonlinear structured illumination microscopy is a super-resolution technique that is challenging to extend to 3 dimensions. The authors obtain super-resolution image information in 3D from a 2D scan by exploiting orthogonal speckle illumination patterns and compressed sensing of the sparse fluorescence.

The DSM-5 has modified the diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder, compared to the fourth edition of the manual; new diagnostic instruments are therefore needed. This study evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the Gambling Disorder Screening Questionnaire (GDSQ), a self-report questionnaire based on the DSM-IV and DSM-5 criteria for Gambling Disorder, measuring its validity, internal consistency, and submitting the questionnaire to a principal components analysis.71 patients from a gambling disorder outpatient clinic and 70 controls were evaluated with the GDSQ, the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), and a psychiatric interview.The test showed a good sensibility, specificity, internal consistency, concurrent validity with the SOGS. The exclusion of the “illegal acts” item, and the lowering of the cut-off score to four positive items, as suggested by the DSM-5 criteria, improved the test sensibility and internal consistency.The GDSQ can be considered a useful screening test for Gambling Disorder. Furthermore, this study confirms the improved diagnostic accuracy of the criteria listed in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, compared to the previous edition.

We characterize, experimentally, the intensity minima of a polarized high numerical aperture optical speckle pattern and the topological charges of the associated optical vortices. The negative of a speckle pattern is imprinted in a uniform fluorescent sample by photobleaching. The remaining fluorescence is imaged with superresolution stimulated emission depletion microscopy, which reveals subdiffraction fluorescence confinement at the center of optical vortices. The intensity statistics of saturated negative speckle patterns are predicted and measured. The charge of optical vortices is determined by controlling the handedness of circular polarization, and the creation or annihilation of a vortex pair along propagation is shown.

In this paper we report a systematic XAS study of a set of samples in which Cu(II) was progressively added to complexes in which Zn(II) was bound to the tetra-octarepeat portion of the prion protein. This work extends previous EPR and XAS analysis in which, in contrast, the effect of adding Zn(II) to Cu(II)–tetra-octarepeat complexes was investigated. Detailed structural analysis of the XAS spectra taken at both the Cu and Zn K-edge when the two metals are present at different relative concentrations revealed that Zn(II) and Cu(II) ions compete for binding to the tetra-octarepeat peptide by cross-regulating their relative binding modes. We show that the specific metal–peptide coordination mode depends not only, as expected, on the relative metal concentrations, but also on whether Zn(II) or Cu(II) was first bound to the peptide. In particular, it seems that the Zn(II) binding mode in the absence of Cu(II) is able to promote the formation of small peptide clusters in which triplets of tetra-octarepeats are bridged by pairs of Zn ions. When Cu(II) is added, it starts competing with Zn(II) for binding, disrupting the existing peptide cluster arrangement, despite the fact that Cu(II) is unable to completely displace Zn(II). These results may have a bearing on our understanding of peptide-aggregation processes and, with the delicate cross-regulation balancing we have revealed, seem to suggest the existence of an interesting, finely tuned interplay among metal ions affecting protein binding, capable of providing a mechanism for regulation of metal concentration in cells.

Scalar wave-fields passing through random media generate random speckle patterns. These patterns contain hot spots but also true zeros of intensity which draw lines in three-dimensional space [1]. These zeros of intensities are surrounded by spiral phase patterns and are thus called optical vortices due to the circulation of the optical current around the nodal line. For optical wave-fields of high numerical apertures, the contribution of all three components of the field must be taken into account. In particular, the axial field cannot be neglected. In STimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy for instance [2], resolution is improved by stimulating fluorescence with a donut-shaped beam exhibiting an optical vortex at its dark center. This beam must be circularly polarized in order to cancel the axial component of the field at the center of the donut. Using the opposite “wrong” circular polarization yields a significant axial component resulting in de-exciting fluorophores located at the donut center.